


Build-a-Baer Workshop

by Hiver_Frost_Elf



Series: STAR Blazers [3]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, American Sign Language, Build-A-Bear Workshop, Bullying, Canon Divergence - Literally Everything!, Canon Divergence - Nora Lives!, Clarkian Cards, Clarkian Sign Language, Clyde Can't Sing for Shit, Disneyathon, Family Reunions, Feelings, Gen, Go Team Dunmer!, Hugs, I know we're all supposed to be playing ESO now but I like Skyrim better, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Mama Rory's Cure for Everything by Dinnertime, Not Canon Compliant, Not Your Mama's Name Debate, Plush Menagerie, Robbie the Therapy Plushie, Robbie the Therapy Plushie Needs a Raise, This is the Heist that Never Starts, West Bullshit Radar, everybody needs a hug, shoelaces
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-18
Updated: 2016-11-26
Packaged: 2018-08-27 06:26:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 19,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8390707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hiver_Frost_Elf/pseuds/Hiver_Frost_Elf
Summary: My name is Iris West, and I am the most persistent investigator alive.  When I was a child, my aunt’s parents were killed in an impossible way.  My youngest cousin was kidnapped as well.  To the outside world, I'm an ordinary blogger, but not-so-secretly, I use my skills to search for impossible things.  One day, I'll find justice for Herr and Frau Neubert and bring Barry home.  I am… almost late to meet Dad and Len for lunch!





	1. Plot

**Author's Note:**

> Unbetaed, barely edited, everyone sucks at summaries.
> 
> Newcomers, welcome! Please read chapter one of parts 1 & 2 first before tackling this installment of STAR Blazers, aka HFE is a Lunatic Theater.
> 
> Oldcomers, welcome back to HFE is a Lunatic Theater! Grab a teddy bear, fasten your seatbelts, and secure your fezzes in the compartment at your feet.
> 
> I own absolutely nothing, and I do not receive revenue from this fic.
> 
> Dialog bordered by sticks "|blah blah blah|" is Spanish. Dialog bordered by single parentheses "(blah blah blah)" is ASL. Double parentheses "((blah blah blah))" = Clarkian Sign Language.
> 
> As always, please direct my attention to logical fallacies, illogical fallacies, grammer/spelling errors, tagging errors, translation errors, and/or math mistakes when you spot them. Lastly, if you have any questions, please please PLEASE ask them.

Wind chimes announced the arrival of Central City’s #1 parka partisan hand in hand with a spindly boy whose gaze snapped around the Motorcar.  Maple syrup and barbeque sauce perfumed and painted the diner.  A jukebox in a corner operated more on punches than quarters.  [ Elvis drawled about a blue Christmas ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uwfz5mMLSDM) even though New Year’s was a week ago.  Two-seat booths framed ¾ of the perimeter, the kitchen and the bathroom dominated the far wall, and four-seat booths congregated in the center.

A man with a Vandyke waved the duo over to the left aisle after they wiped their feet on a wiry welcome mat.  They just sat down—elder outside, youth inside—when an artsy-scarfed woman flurried in slipping on stray snowflakes.  She laughed it off because she totally intended to do that, scooched into her father’s side of the booth, and introduced herself to the stranger across from her, “Hi! I’m Iris; you must be Mick’s little brother.”

“Servus!” her gymnastics awed him. “Lisa, Mark, and Clyde have told me a lot about you.”

“They text me about you, like, every other day,” the older two at the table went completely ignored. “I saw this in a store, sent of a pic of it to them, and they said you’d flip for it, so I absolutely had to buy it.  Here! Merry super late Christmas!”

She retrieved a floppy package covered in _Starry Night_ wrapping paper from her coat and handed it over.  Solnishko uncovered a raccoon-eared beanie with button eyes and braided tassels.

“I love raccoons!” he donned it right away and presented her a wallet-sized rendition of [ _Irises_ ](http://vincentinparis.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/A-Vase-of-Irises-pink-white-background-St-Remy-May-10-1890-Spring-1024x818.jpg). “I hope you like my gift.”

The level of detail floored her.  The grape-like cluster in the middle was as off-center here as it was in the original.  Van Gogh himself wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.  She pocketed it right away so she wouldn’t lose it. “I don’t like it, I love it!”

Len sipped some ice water and furtively nibbled a cheeseburger.  Joe chugged root beer while Iris drank Coke Zero.  Solnishko ate as many hot dogs as his brother would’ve without needing to adjust his belt a centimeter afterwards.

They chatted about today’s plans.  Upon hearing Solnishko was free, Iris became hopeful yet hesitated to ask him to accompany her, “Usually, my cousins come with me, but Cisquito’s a log cuz he stayed up late due to divine inspiration or whatever, and Cait’s in bed on literal doctor’s orders.  I feel so dorky going alone, but it’s for Wally.”

“Who’s Wally?” Solnishko inquired.

“My little brother....  I was so excited; Cait had two little brothers and a little sister already, and I wanted to be big sister, too.  I must’ve snuck Barry home with me at least half a dozen times....”

She closed her eyes and mouth.  Len, Solnishko, and Joe frowned.  The latter wrapped an arm around his daughter.  She leaned on him and miraculously refrained from crying.

“Somebody took him when he was four,” Joe informed him.  Joe squinted when Len pointed his gaze at his brother-in-law for a millisecond.

“He wanted to go to school like his siblings and I did, but he wasn’t old enough yet, so Aunt Nora’s parents agreed to teach him for a day,” Iris hung her head low. “....We never got to find out what he learned.”

Joe grasped at any straw to lighten the mood before he lost his lunch to strangled hearts, “Have you ever been to Build-a-Bear Workshop, Solnishko?”

“No, sir.”

Iris’s jaw crashed into the chessboard floor, “This would be the perfect time for you to go!  They have a ton of wild animals right now—including raccoons!”

A snapshot of a thick-pawed, fuzzy-tailed beast sitting up on a shelf and waiting for an owner mesmerized Solnishko.  Joe quirked an eyebrow at Len, who smirked back.  West Bullshit Radar® flagged Len’s “holidays are too hectic, let’s introduce Iris and Solnishko next year” excuse weeks ago.  The holidays weren’t too hectic to introduce Iris to the twins, so was Len up to?  Joe finally connected the dots when Len’s abrupt change of mind coincided with the anniversary of Wally and Francine’s deaths.

Len and Joe split the bill and sent the kids on their way.  Solnishko’s hispid blazer mingled with Iris’s wool when she accepted his request to hold hands.  Caitlin couldn’t stand hugs ~~anymore because they reminded her of Barry~~.  This was her compromise with her cousin and hermano.  The trio received weird looks growing up, but Nora refuted them by telling them about how her then-new friends and even her tour guide held her hand during her family’s summer abroad.

“Then we came home, and I realized Americans make such a big deal out everything,” she said that afternoon while she and the tweens kneaded homemade pizza dough, “Hold hands as much as you want; it means you’re enlightened and get along great, which is all anybody wants for their family.”

Iris figured Nora was Solnishko’s spirit animal since their trains of thought chugged along the same track.  They both spoke German to boot!

Solnishko zoomed in on a raccoon as soon as they entered.  His hands halted as soon as she informed him that he was about to take the display.  She directed him to a bin of pelts that came up to his hips.  Flustered, he apologized, which Iris waved off, “Don’t worry, you’re a first-timer.  Just do what I do; I’m a veteran around here!” Iris selected a hyena after a moment’s deliberation, brought Solnishko to the stuffing station and snapped her fingers at a vulpine-eyed lady, “Linda Park, scooch your booch over here!”

Linda almost got through telling them that they didn’t need to do the heart ritual before Solnishko spun in place.  She smiled and shook her head as she walked her dweeby college roommate and her equally dweeby new friend through it anyway, ending with the boy kissing his heart on Iris’s forehead and Iris returning the gesture on his cheek because there was no way she’d reach his forehead.

Those two brought today’s total of overaged customers up to five.  The goth blond half of a pair was louder than a party of seven-year-olds while the pumpkin spice half never spoke a word.  The last one felt like a dork the entire time, yet he insisted on doing the heart ritual because his pug was a peace offering that wouldn’t be as peaceful if he built it wrong.

Linda frowned internally as Iris and Solnishko perused the clothing; her new job at CCPN would keep her from being here for her friend on one of the worst days of her life.  Another bad day eventually changed her career choice.  Her father had a big damn speech and a PowerPoint presentation prepared about the dangers of law enforcement.  His initial relief at Iris switching to journalism faded when West Bullshit Radar® nagged him into questioning her.

“Cops receive new cases all the time, so they have to stop investigating unsolved crimes at some point.  Journalists can get to the bottom of things no matter how deep the bottom is,” high school sophomore Iris paused her homework to tell him.  Disappointment simmered inside her, “I’m going to do what you and CCPD can’t: find Barry.”

Right now, though, Iris’s foremost concern was finding the perfect outfit for Vinnie van Gogh: a flowing tunic, leggings, and open-toed boots.  #FAR Junior got cerulean sneakers, a sweater, and jeans.  She asked who #FAR Senior was.  Solnishko swiped through his phone and showed her his first photo ever and explained it was from the day his brother adopted him, “Mick’s the best birthday present ever, even though he was a day late.”

“....Your birthday is June 20th?”

“Yep!”

“Okay, this is gonna sound like a crazy invasive question, but what’s your blood type?”

“AB+,” he chirped as Iris swiped her Bear Buck$ card.  Henry insisted on testing everybody as soon as possible after three babies and a toddler bled out on him in the same day.

She would’ve begun an inquisition if her boyfriend hadn’t shown up and physically objected to her holding hands with someone else.  Security came at her call and manhandled the muscleman away from Solnishko and #FAR Junior’s crushed home.  Linda witnessed the whole incident and assembled a new one immediately.

Iris guided Solnishko into the window seat of their bench on the bus: a pale green, rectangular tank.  Ridged flooring produced an aluminum echo with each step they took.  Sweat fogged over to a gray-haired driver from the hockey players who congregated in the back.  Both parties asked if they could do anything to help—the entire team volunteered to beat the crap out of Tony, afterwards the driver told the athletes to get in line—but Solnishko shook his head no.  The driver glanced at him every so often, worry wrinkling her face each time.  The hockey players tightened their grip on their sticks and helmets as Solnishko clutched his ribs and heaved.  His breath convulsed as if he was trying not to cry.  Iris drew him in while he whimpered, “People pick on me cuz they think I act weird on purpose.  I try to act normal—I swear, I try—but it never works cuz der Mann in Gelb made sure I’ll never be normal no matter what I do!”

Mick answered Iris’s phone before it tolled twice, “Cub, we’ve talked about this.  You’re never in the wrong for actin’ like yourself cuz yourself is kind and smart.  Stick with Iris, I’ll be right over.”

Iris took back her phone, and with a bit of maneuvering, managed to squeeze Solnishko’s hand four times and text Cisco.  He literally woke up twenty minutes ago and hadn’t showered or eaten since yesterday, yet he bus-hopped to her and Caitlin’s apartment since her demand sounded so urgent.  His umber eyes bulged upon sight of his sister grumbling at Netflix, “Why does she give that loser the time of day?  Even his own actor hates him!  Why is he still on the show!?”

She’d vomited on her angelically warm and fluffy bathrobe last night, so she had to borrow Iris’s anorexic rag instead.  Sickness bloated her eyes.  Snot bubbled at her nostrils no matter how much snuffling and sneezing she did.  She wasn’t even wearing a bra, for crying out loud!

In short, this particular show exacerbated her already pungent mood.  Cisco knew for a fact that she only watched it to vent her frustration at Tony Jealousass Woodward because that’s the only reason he watched it.  Rubbing oily hair out of his face, Cisco plopped onto the other end of the couch and cautiously slid another box of tissues over to his Schwester, “So, uh… if you’re not dying or anything, why did Iris tell me to come?  I mean, I love visiting you two, but....”

Caitlin’s eyes became lasers as she checked her phone.  She shrugged before slumping pathetically against the couch.  She would’ve resumed her rant if Iris hadn’t flung the door off its hinges and bolted for her bedroom without so much as a word to greet them.

They stared at the stranger who’d come in behind her as he stood inanimately in the galley kitchen.  Cisco knew Caitlin was barely alive at this point, because she made no remark about how ill she looked in front of company.  The stranger ducked his gaze towards the portrait of Barry limping on the fridge.  It held on as if a breeze was all it would take to knock it down.

Caitlin glowered at the intruder with tight, silent breaths.  What Cisco thought would break the ice between them only chilled it further, “Do you know Iris from school?”

“No… der Mann in Gelb never let me go anywhere....”

Caitlin defrosted as she and Cisco wondered whom Iris brought home.  Just as they were about to ask, their cousin stole Cisco’s seat and slammed her scrapbook onto the coffee table.

Iris showed Solnishko a photo of Nora and Henry: a slow head shake.

Martin and Clarissa: another head shake.

Nona and Nelson—whose murders Barry might’ve witnessed: scrunched eyebrows, yet ultimately nothing.

Anxiety conquered Iris as she flipped to a picture of her, Cisco, and Caitlin interlocking arms one year before Barry was kidnapped.  What if he didn’t recognize them?

What if Solnishko wasn’t Barry after all???

“That’s them!” Solnishko’s hands undulated: a mirror of Barry’s mannerisms for increasingly and agonizingly obvious reasons.  He pointed to young Iris, then young Cisco, then young Caitlin, “That’s the girl who talks, that’s the boy who laughs, and that’s the girl who sings!  The words are too jumbled to make out the lyrics, but the song goes like this.”

A tune frolicked from his mouth.  Realization punched the breath out of them: it was the song Nora’s parents introduced them to.  Instinctively, as if she’d been singing to him all these years, Caitlin bordered on tears, “[ Brüderchen, komm tanz mit mir / Beide Hände reich' ich dir / Einmal hin, einmal her, / Ringsherum, das ist nicht schwer.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fz-zQBvTbiU)”

“That’s it!” Solnishko’s smile matched Barry’s, “Iris said you’re smart, but she should’ve said you’re super smart!”

“|It’s him....|” Cisco muttered in Spanish, supporting his Schwester as much as she supported him.  He avoided Solnishko because looking at him was as painful as being electrocuted. “|Iris said she’d find him and she did!|”

Caitlin’s joy manifested as tears and sniffles.  Solnishko flitted his gaze from her, to Iris, to Cisco, and to Caitlin again, “Are you not used to hearing compliments?  That’s okay, neither am I,” which only added more rain to the flood, “but I’m getting better at it!”

This was how Mick found them: Joe’s kid, niece, and nephew sobbing next to his hopelessly confused Cub.  It wasn’t until the Girl Who Talks finally appeared on the pages of Solnishko’s Everything Else Notebook that Mick accepted Len was right....  There was no denying Solnishko’s first family was out there somewhere; Mick just didn’t expect “out there somewhere” to be anywhere near this hemisphere.

Solnishko would need somebody to tell him he was Barry, cuz every time he put two and two together, he got fish… or flagpole… or upside-down chair.  If his family didn’t know that, they wouldn’t know keeping his closet full of crap would keep him from hunkering in there whenever he committed even a minor infraction.  They wouldn’t know he needed glow-in-the-dark stars and at least two blankets at night because der Mann in Gelb left him cold and alone in the dark for weeks on end.  They wouldn’t know he’d want hugs every day yet fear asking for them half the time after fourteen years of never getting a single thing he wanted.  It took a crew months to learn these things; Nora was a homemaker, but the rest of his family couldn’t simply drop everything for a tutorial on how to take care of him without alerting der Mann in Gelb.

Solnishko clutched the handle on his Build-a-Bear Workshop box.  This was it; they’d take him back after this, and there was nothing Mick could do about it.  Solnishko gulped meekly at… his cousin and siblings.  The trio looked up at the grizzly man....

“You found Barry,” Caitlin got up, laid her hands on Mick’s shoulders, and looked up at him guiltily. “How can we ever thank you for that!?!”

Herbal eyes looked down into carob eyes.  Mick bit his lip.  Caitlin might as well have been eight feet taller than him for how hard it was for him to make this request, “....You could share ‘im.”

“Of course!” Caitlin choked as she cast her gaze towards Solnishko, stepped back, and folded her hands behind her. “You have more right to him than we do at this point.”

Mick huffed incredulously as he folded his arms, “How do y’all figure that?”

“Barry basically just met us,” Cisco ducked his head dejectedly and his hands in his lap, “and all we know about him’s outdated.”

Solnishko frowned, frozen on the spot ever since Caitlin called him Barry.  He didn’t even seem to be breathing.  His eyes went unblinking.  He blubbered weakly, “I don’t know how to be Barry Allen; it’s hard enough being Solnishko Rory half the time!  ....But if you only want me as Barry Allen, I’ll try my best....”

Caitlin’s already unkempt hair frazzled further.  She looked straight up at him and cupped his face, “Solnishko, listen to me: if somebody—anybody—doesn’t accept you exactly as you are, they don’t deserve you, do you hear me!?”

Solnishko squeaked, “Yes, ma’am.”

“I am not ma’am, Brüderchen,” Caitlin shook her head, pecked his forehead, and squeezed his hand four times. “I am Caitlin or Cait; either way, I’m Schwester.”

“And I’m Cisco!”

“Or Cisquito!”

“No!” Cisco hissed at Iris. “Don’t you dare infect his virgin ears with your dumpster language!” He clamped his hand over Iris’s mouth, “I’m Hermano!”

“You know me, I’m Iris,” she said after she bit Cisco. “I’m Cousin: derived from basic, boring English.”

Solnishko giggled for a beat.  His mouth did a U-turn, “Do I have to live with you now?  I’m sure your homes are nice, but I wanna keep living with Mick.” He looked up at his brother. “If that’s okay???”

“Your choice’ll always be okay, Cub.  C’mere—all of you,” Mick gathered everybody into an extended, content embrace. “Pack your bags, y’all are comin’ back to my house and spendin’ quality together.”

Caitlin coughed up snot and shivered, “Maybe we should do this when I’m better than barely alive.”

Mick scoffed, “Don’t be ridiculous, Mama Rory—”

“The Bearded Lady!” Solnishko grinned cheekily.

Mick gave him a noogie, “Taught me a recipe that’ll fix ya right up by dinnertime.”

Caitlin donned a minimal effort outfit: sweatshirt, pajama pants, and fuzzy snowy owl slippers.  The trio brought a suitcase each—Cisco kept a stockpile of clothes at the girls’ place after his aborted stint on the ultimate Frisbee team last year—plus their Plush Menagerie.  Iris figured Wally would want Solnishko to have it, and Caitlin and Cisco eagerly donated their critters: the start of fourteen years’ worth of missed presents.

“They all get along okay?” Solnishko held up Leah and Leia da Vinci—Caitlin’s snowy owls—and Sally Dalí: Cisco’s bunny. “Even though they’re all different animals?”

“You betcha!” hummed Cisco, with the girls agreeing. “Plushies are awesome at crossing species boundaries compared to quote-on-quote ‘real’ animals!”

They rock-paper-scissored for the right to sit next to Solnishko: Cisco won.  The older trio were discussing how to tell the rest of the family—not noticing Solnishko’s locked posture—when Iris got a call.  Joe interrupted the most exciting news in the world to inform her, “Len told me right after you two left the Motorcar.”

“He knew!?” Iris glared at Mick and exploded at her father.  Mick sheepishly focused on the road.  Hell hath no fury like an Iris scorned. “Why did he wait this long to tell us!?!”

“Because Solnishko’s not ready for all of us, honey.  Hell! He can’t even bring himself to call me Joe, and he’s known me since November; he doesn’t need the pressure of calling me Uncle Joe,” he sighed patiently.  He missed Solnishko, too, but he’d wait as long as Solnishko needed. “Keep him a secret.  There are good reasons why Len and the gang didn’t go shouting from the rooftops as soon as they figured out Solnishko's identity, and one of 'em rhymes with ‘slur pawn min’… well, nothing really rhymes with ‘Gelb’.”

Crestfallen, Iris relayed Joe’s recommendation.  The trio didn’t miss Solnishko release the breath he was holding and loosen his grip on #FAR Junior.  Objectively, he knew Henry and Nora were good folks, but Mark and Clyde's history plus his encounter with Lewis turned him off from parental units.

Inner city skyscrapers faded into curbside beaches.  Industrial detritus diminished into fresh air.  The closest neighbor—someone with a green flag on their mailbox—lived over an hour away.  Mick chuckled half-heartedly when a couple of motorcycles began swimming around the van: a navy, freshly-washed tank.  Clyde was just as noisy as a motorist as he was as a pedestrian.  Theoretically, the twins lived in safehouse #2 now, yet they infested safehouse #8 with all of the stuff they left lying around.

Len grumbled as he picked a golden retriever up off the floor.  Lisa dismissed him, “You know they only leave stuff here so they have an excuse to visit.”

“They don’t need an excuse to visit, they need to keep their crap out of my neat and tidy—get your ass off my counter!” Len swatted her away.

Lisa hadn’t seen him cleaning so furiously since Dedushka invited himself over and blood splatter, beer stains, and glass shards littered Lewis’s house from the previous night’s lessons, “Something’s really bugging you, huh?”

Len sanitized the counter for the seventh time today, “Nothing is bugging me.”

“You know who says that?” Lisa tucked Robbie under her arm. “People who are being bugged.”

Len crinkled his paper towel, “....Did I time this right?  Should I have waited??  Should I have acted sooner???” Lisa perked an eyebrow, impatiently waiting for him to continue. “40% of Central City is multilingual, and of that 40%, only 20% are fluent in German.  Of that 20%, only one individual is a hazel-eyed, brunet boy born on June 20th who vanished.  I’ve been keeping Joe’s nephew from him this entire time!”

Lisa placed her free hand on her brother’s shoulder, “You remember when Mick first brought him home; Solnishko was a mess—a cute mess—but a mess.  He didn’t wanna watch _Finding Nemo_ or _Finding Dory_ because those movies are about families looking for their lost children.  He didn’t think his family did that for him, and the only person who could show him that wasn’t true needed a buddy not yesterday, not tomorrow, today,” she smiled tearfully. “Plus, this way, he got a raccoon out of it.”

Len smiled at a photo of Solnishko and #FAR Junior Iris had sent Lisa: a moment which was ruined by Clyde blaring, “[ This is the heist that never starts / we’ve waited so long now it smarts / our leader started planning it without enough intel / he says we won’t heist again until it’s cold in hell!!! ](https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=lamb+chop+song+that+never+ends&view=detail&mid=1114ADB4476A5972D7B41114ADB4476A5972D7B4&FORM=VIRE)”

Lisa snickered at Len’s ire.  No doubt the boy who’d never grow up was on at least round five by now, and oh joy, Solnishko had joined in as well!

Mark confidently set a Build-a-Bear Workshop box on the kitchen table.  Rustic sensibilities shined through its reddish-brown slab and thick, rougher legs.  Intricacies included donuts connecting brick-shaped calves to rounded lower sections.  Matching thrones were as imposing and proud as its artisan.  Mick’s masterpiece scoffed at anybody who fretted about elbow room.

“We built foxes!” Clyde exclaimed.  Solnishko manipulated Robbie so she could sniff her new pups, Marco and Claudio, who sniffed her likewise.

“What are they saying?” Solnishko asked Mark, because quiet folks like Mark can hear plushies, obvi!

“((Robbie’s saying, ‘Ohmygosh! Your adoptions are finally official!’  And the twins are saying, ‘Thank you so much for wanting both of us.  Most folks only want one of us; it’s hard to keep siblings together.’))” Mark leaned towards the foxes and motioned for Solnishko to come closer and winked at Clyde.  In sync, the twins snatched up their foxes and tickled Solnishko with their flossy tails.  Solnishko would push one back only for the other to worm under his armpit.

He panted as he introduced the twins to the trio, “That’s Cait, you already know Iris, and… they can’t decide what I’m supposed to call him, but he’s my hermano.  His first family didn’t want him, so Mrs. Stein took him home.  The adoption agency said she and Professor Stein were too old to adopt and Detective West was too busy to adopt, but Mrs. Allen wasn’t, so she and Doctor Allen adopted him.”

“Names!” Clyde demanded.  Mark’s eyes fumed as intensely as Clyde’s voice. “We got murders to plan!”

Cisco kicked an imaginary soda can as he lugged his luggage by hand over the carpet.  He bounced back quickly, “I don’t care that my first family didn’t want me.” He looked at Len and Lisa; both approved of his next words. “Some bastards hate their kids yet won’t let ‘em go....  Ya know what they say; if ya love something, set it free!”

Mark and Clyde still wanted to plan murders though, so Mick defused them, “Do you wanna give some bastards fifteen minutes of fame, or do you want to focus your attention on folks who matter?”

Thus began the grand tour of safehouse #8.  Solnishko paused at the door to Shawna’s room and sighed, “Shawna’s back in Gotham for school.  I miss her.”

“She’s coming back for February break, she said so,” Clyde fist-bumped Solnishko’s shoulder, “and Shawna never breaks her promises!”

“((Grammy would come back to life and Gibbs-slap her if she did,))” Mark added, with Clyde shuddering his agreement.

“Is that a twin language???” Caitlin had always heard of those, yet she’d never encountered one in real life.

“((Cait’s a twin, too,))” Solnishko signed after nodding to his sister.  He and the twins huddled like teammates.  The twins were as secretive with Clarkian Sign Language as dwarves are with Khuzdul. “((Her younger sister was stillborn though, and their mother died in labor.  Her first father visited as often as he could, but he died of MS.  She talks like their deaths were her fault.  She talks like lots of stuff is her fault....  Would it be okay to teach her CSL, too?))”

“((Hell, yeah!))” Clyde didn’t hesitate to reply.

“((Once a twin, always a twin,))” Mark concurred as he opened the door to his and Clyde’s allegedly former bedroom.  The twins briefed everybody on their fleet of model biplanes and jets hanging from the ceiling.  Nobody could walk more than four feet in any direction without bumping into one.  Solnishko had designed 3D-looking clouds and a cityscape on the walls; it was the first time he’d ever painted.

The walls on Solnishko’s room featured a forest of chibi raccoons.  One in particular was painted to look like its tail was curling around a wooden panel while its head and one of its paws poked out from the other side.  Caitlin smiled when her gaze trailed upward, “You have stars in your room at Mutti and Vati's house, too.  You hated being alone in the dark.”

“Really? That hasn’t changed much; now, I don’t like being cold or alone in the dark, but I would rather be cold and in the dark than alone....  Do my old stars have names?”

“No,” Caitlin shook her head minutely.

“Oh. Well, I was little, so I guess I didn’t think of it back then,” Solnishko foraged his desk for three stars and handed one to each member of the trio. “Everybody should have a name....”

Killer Frost, Southwest, and Reverb joined the rest of the crew: Sparky, Snowy, Goldendoodle, Lowell, Lori, Kala, Tarzan, Baez, and Grammy.

A hand-sized, super-scrunchable Lilo and Stitch leaned against one another beside two notebooks on top of his bookshelf: his Green Notebook and his Everything Else Notebook.  Four boxes sat on the bottom of his bookshelf.  Solnishko beamed as he unlidded each one in succession, overjoyed that his cousin and siblings asked about them, “These are my shoelaces!!!  These are the cool-colored ones, these are the warm-colored ones, these are the multicolored ones, and these are the sparkly ones!” He slid his closet open and revealed a hodgepodge of laceless men’s, women’s, and children’s footwear.  He nudged escapees back into the stockpile, “What are your sizes?  If you see any pairs you like that fit, Lenny’ll set you up with laces."

Caitlin was too stunned to process anything; responsibility compelled her to ask if it was truly okay for Solnishko to buy so many shoes he’d never wear....  Then she remembered that interest on savings from the early days and a healthy portfolio could keep all eight safehouses ready to use and Saints & Sinners in the black even if Len sat on his ass and replayed _Frozen_ all day.

Iris didn’t see anything she wanted.  Cisco snatched up sleek, black-and-purple high tops, “If it’s for free, it’s for me!”

Mark and Clyde grabbed some rollerblades and followed Cisco into the kitchen where Len rolled open a drawer—no kidding—of laces arranged by order in the rainbow, vibrancy, and length.  Cisco selected neon green laces and the twins grabbed white ones patterned with paint splatters.

Caitlin sneezed when she flopped into a chair.  Mick set out a bowl of Mama Rory’s Cure for Everything by Dinnertime™: earthen-perfumed chowder with melted cheese, dark herbs, and chicken.

Solnishko robed her with his raccoon quilt so she’d stay warm, which the gesture accomplished as much as the meal, and sat in the seat next to her, “Did I collect shoelaces back then, too?”

Caitlin held up her hand until she swallowed, “....Mutti rearranged the cabinets so we could store our shoes out of your reach.”

Iris recalled fondly, “My dad’s coworkers came over for his famous midsummer barbeque—we had to move it inside when it began raining—the entire force’s shoelaces were gone in seconds.”

Solnishko asked with equal parts curiosity and excitement, “I was fast back then, too???”

“You never stopped running around!” Cisco heaved from memories of herding him inside for naps.  This exercise trained Cisco up from the slowest person in gym class to the 2nd slowest person in gym class!

“I’m faster now!” Solnishko was raring to impress the trio, who nodded blankly, because why wouldn’t an eighteen-year-old be faster than a four-year-old?  Len twitched.  Lisa’s smile flattened.  Mick gripped his armrests.  Solnishko’s powers were the last hurdle to leap over for the ladies; the last hurdle for Cisco was inside the Green Notebook.

“((Do the water funnel,))” Mark encouraged him.  Clyde burst into the backyard without grabbing a jacket first.  Solnishko swapped his sweater for a thermal long-sleeved tee and secured his sneakers.  Everybody gathered on winter-hardened sand in a prickly, nautical breeze.

Solnishko got into position and Clyde counted him down, “73, 86, 54—hike!”

The sandstorm hadn’t settled yet when a watery tornado rose out of the ocean with cobalt lightning circling its perimeter.  Solnishko’s electricity had become darker and more vibrant due to better health, presumably.

“Brüderchen has freakin’ superpowers!!!” Cisco recovered first when Solnishko zipped back over to the others.  His eyes glowed a ghostly shadow of his lightning’s color. “This is my nerdy dream come true!”

“I thought your nerdy dream was a foursome with Eleven, Amy, and Rory.”

Cisco scoffed at his heathen cousin, “That’s everybody’s nerdy dream!”

Solnishko took Caitlin’s gargoyle stare and stance as rejection, “HermanosaidIwasalwaysrunningaroundyousaidifsomebodydoesn’tacceptmeexactlyasIamtheydon’tdeserveme!”

 _I don’t deserve you anyway; I put you in danger.  If I complained about school as often as Cisco did or even as infrequently as Iris did, wouldn’t you have been content to stay home and never have been kidnapped???_   She resumed breathing, “You’re right; your powers are as much a part of you as all your other parts.”

The honeymoon ended when Iris asked after they'd congregated in the living room, “Did der Mann in Gelb experiment on you?  Is that how you got them?”

Solnishko tilted his head off to the side, “I’ve had my lightning as far back as I can remember.”

“How far back do you remember?”

Solnishko shrugged as he sipped some blue Gatorade, “I don’t remember much of the early stuff, and even some of the later stuff’s fading, but everything after Mick rescued me’s sticking around.” Solnishko took another sip. “My earliest memory is the first time der Mann in Gelb showed me footage from the original timeline.”

The trio paled when Solnishko summarized der Mann in Gelb’s journey from the future specifically to murder him, but der Mann in Gelb’s lightning said no, so he had to wait for someone—Capone, Malone, Solnishko didn’t remember the exact name—to build the cold gun since that was the only weapon with the icepower to knock out speedster healing.

Wild blueprints appeared on Cisco's workbench last year.  Hartley and Caitlin didn’t know where they came from.  They were too tempting to pass up, and before he knew it, he’d constructed some partners to go with it.  He’d debuted them the day after Barry’s birthday.  Doctor Wells said they were his magna opera. “Len! You can find anything; you gotta find the cold gun!  I’m not letting der Mann in Gelb murder Brüderchen with something I built! Or at all!!!”

“A fake janitor stole it along with the heat gun and the gold gun!” Iris panicked, having blogged about the heist herself. “Cameras were down all day, so it could’ve been anybody!”

“You doofuses!” Caitlin slapped her hermano and cousin with one motion, then flourished her arm at thundering Mick and Clyde, barely contained Lisa and Mark, smirking Len, and Solnishko.  The latter assumed this was news was so old, it was in a retirement home.

“(Off the record, two of the fake janitors may or may be twins,)” Mark winked, him and Clyde sandwiching Solnishko as usual.  It was the boys and Shawna’s finest hour… and seventeen minutes and thirty-nine seconds, by Len’s reckoning.  It's a good thing Mark and Clyde were used to walking everywhere because good grief, STAR Labs was ginormous!

“Papa Rory always said never hire so many folks that nobody knows each other,” Mick chuckled, leaning against the short end of the L-shaped couch with one arm on the armrest and his other arm curling behind Len’s waist.

“Shawna hacked the security system!” Solnishko flapped his hands. “She has to satisfy her technological competency requirement, and her professor holds a high standard for what constitutes ‘technological competency’ because he’s an ex-MI6 agent."

Cisco breathed again, “You’ve stashed those in a safe, right?”

“No!” Len balked at these ridiculous, naïve children. “Never keep anything in a safe; all somebody has to do is take the safe with them, allowing them to crack it from the comfort of home.”

Compared to her cousins, Iris strayed dangerously close to a life of crime.  Aside from smuggling Barry next door, she also stole a handful of their grandmother’s cookies… without sharing a single one! “Ah, the voice of experience.”

“Ah, the voice of someone whose idea of thievery comes from Elder Scrolls,” Lisa quipped.

Mark held up crossed victory Vs as Clyde and Solnishko posed like Power Rangers, “Go Team Dunmer!”

“Skyrim for the Nords!!!” Cisco retaliated.

“Babysitting,” Len shook his head at his chuckling husband. “Greatest thieves alive, and we are relegated to babysitting.”

“You children are all dumb,” declared Lisa despite being younger than 3/4 of the group she addressed.  She wriggled into a spot between them behind the couch. “Obviously, an Altmer can electrocute all of you before any of you even see her.”

Cue _Princess Bride_ -style booing.

Steering the conversation back on track, Solnishko said, “My first memory is der Mann in Gelb showing me footage of me fighting Pied Piper.”

“Wait, what? You’re a superhero in the future!?!” Cisco squealed.

“Uh-huh,” Solnishko nodded, then opened his eyes. “I don’t think I was a good one though, cuz I didn’t recognize the look in Pied Piper’s eyes.”

“What look?”

“My look… from when der Mann in Geld had me....  It’d be easier just to show you.”

Lisa, Len, and Mick regretted that they hadn’t made popcorn because they’d be eating it now.  Solnishko zipped in and out of the room and sped through his Green Notebook to a page featuring a mid-twenties Pied Piper snarling, on his back, and crawling away.  Cisco, Iris, and Caitlin couldn’t picture Solnishko snarling.  They couldn’t figure out what he was talking about until they focused on Pied Piper’s eyes which said, _I am alone and in pain, and everybody prefers me this way_.

Cisco slipped his hands across his scalp before clapping them in front of his mouth and closed his eyes, boiling.  The only thing that kept him from erupting was Solnishko shuddering, “His gloves don’t hurt as much as the cold gun does, but they shatter all my ribs in one blast.  Original future me called him Hartley, but he called himself Pied Piper.  If I meet him in this timeline, I’ll ask him what he wants to be called before I call him anything....  Maybe the reason we haven’t met in this timeline is because I bullied him in the original one.”

Solnishko had been battling guilt over his counterpart’s abuse of Pied Piper since day one.  The gang hadn’t told him about #Rathagay yet because the best day of Solnishko’s life was the anniversary of the worst day of this timeline’s version of Pied Piper’s.  Media vultures plastered him all over Central, his parents disowned him overnight, and his boyfriend wouldn’t weather the storm.  Hartley was ragged by the time he reached STAR Labs.  Oh sure, he cologned himself in confidence during his interview with Doctor Wells, but all he had to his name was his flute, laptop, PhD, and the outfit he was wearing.

Solnishko’s lips quivered as he looked up at his siblings and cousin, “Did I draw him wrong?  None of you are saying anything.  Der Mann in Gelb would say that using colors is unacceptable.”

“Der Mann in Gelb knows nothing about art,” Iris assured him with a voice which rolled throughout the room like a breeze. “You are a phenomenal artist.”

Caitlin kissed Solnishko’s forehead before requesting somewhere private for a flash family meeting.  Len got up and directed them to the workshop while Solnishko stayed upstairs and introduced everybody else to the Plush Menagerie.

Iris perched herself atop an empty spot on the workbench, curling her legs all ladylike.  Her eyes darted back and forth between this tennis match: statuesque Caitlin versus madly gesticulating Cisco.

“Brüderchen—a legit superhero—fights Hartley Rathaway—a legit supervillain—in the future!” Cisco huffed as he puffed out his chest and fidgeted. “Ergo, we should put Hartley in jail now so we don’t have to deal with him later.”

“....You don’t become a superhero to hurt people; you become a superhero to help people,” Caitlin stared him down. “You may not remember how it felt being rejected for no good reason, but I do.  The first Christmas you spent with our family, you opened one gift—one!—and squealed and danced like an idiot for a solid minute.  You were the happiest person alive and would’ve left to go to your room, but then Mutti pointed out that you had more presents to open.  You said, and Iris quotes....”

Iris cleared her throat, and then adopted a mousey, boyish tone. “‘Why are you giving me more presents???  This is already more than my old family ever gave me,’” Iris reverted to her normal voice. “We’ve got it all on tape for your viewing pleasure if you don’t believe us.  And speaking of word choice,” she formed an O with her fist, “one does not simply throw ‘bully’ around willy-nilly.  Assuming he grew up with us in the original timeline, my guess is that the reason he treated Hartley so badly is because somebody encouraged him; and based on what I endure after you two get off work, it probably wasn’t Cait.”

“We’re not responsible for what we did in the original timeline, but we are responsible for what we do in this one, and Hartley’s future needs to change," Caitlin decreed. "If you won’t do it for him, do it for Brüderchen.”

Cisco gulped and nodded numbly.  The trio plodded back upstairs.  Solnishko was sitting criss-cross applesauce in the middle of the floor and locking gazes with Jerrie: a Eurasian lynx.  He held her up and beamed at the trio, “Jerrie has a green hoodie just like Pied Piper!  I know you said the Plush Menagerie’s mine, but would it be okay if I gave her to him?  He’d like her best.  He likes kitties.  I like kitties, too, but I prefer raccoons.”

Cisco moved enough plushies to sit down next to Solnishko, who pillowed his head on his hermano’s shoulder.  Cisco flung an arm around him and squeezed Brüderchen’s hand four times, “....I think Pied Piper would love her.”

Mick got up to start dinner, Lisa got up to taste test dinner, and Len retreated to the library.  Plushies formed a second carpet until Solnishko speed-arranged them on the coffee table.  Solnishko gave Jerrie and #FAR Junior the best seat in the house—his lap—for a back-to-back viewing of _Finding Nemo_ and _Finding Dory_.

Solnishko began yawning shortly after sunset and plonked into Mark’s lap somewhere in the ballpark of ten o’clock.  He hugged Jerrie as if he had rigor mortis.  Caitlin stroked his hair until Mick carried him away.

“Dibs on the top bunk!” Iris skittered into the twins’ more or less ex-bedroom.

“Fine!” Cisco groaned as he trudged into Shawna’s room. “I’ll sleep in the boring, grown-up room....”

Clyde looked at Len with alarm, “Wait, where are we sleeping!?”

“At your house!” Len’s tolerance of the twins decreased exponentially after dark.  They hit him with a double whammy of pouting, yet he stood firm. “You can come back after sunrise tomorrow, but you are not sleeping here.  The bed situation barely works as it is.  I love you; go away!”

“Lenny said he loves us, Mark!” Clyde grinned half-genuinely, half-teasingly.

Mark got up off the couch and signed, “((Told you so.))”

“Go away!” Len repeated.  His fingers bore into his temples.  He nearly fainted when the twins actually departed, “And don’t slam the—” Whap! “Door....”

_Saturday Morning_

Solnishko woke up first as usual and popped in _Hunchback of Notre Dame_ just before he heard two meek knocks behind him.  He paused the movie, looked through the bubble, and saw someone he’d recognize no matter how distorted his image was.  He opened the door for a brunet guy with medium, mottled brown frames.

“Apologies for bothering you, but a question has nagged me all night, and I need it answered,” hooded Hartley Rathaway stated. “Am I hallucinating!?  A few months ago, I started seeing tornados rise up and rain back into the ocean, then I saw one again yesterday afternoon!”

When a pencil wiggles fast enough, it looks like it’s bending.  That’s what Solnishko’s arm did until cobalt lightning laced around it like a protective snake.  It nipped Hartley’s nose, then dove back into his blood.  Hartley’s eyes widened with unexpected validation.  Solnishko held up a wait signal, dashed into his room, and brought back a letter before his eyes stopped glowing.  Solnishko sheepishly rubbed his foot along the carpet as Hartley read it at the proffered table.

_If you want to be called something other than Hartley, let me know right away.  My name doesn’t match what’s on my birth certificate either._

_I was rescued on the anniversary of #Rathagay, and I was barely able to handle freedom.  My family just told me about it yesterday.  I’m sorry this letter comes to you so late and if it brings up bad memories, but apparently nobody’s told you this, so I will._

_Your family is little and broken, but that’s okay because you didn’t break it; your parents did.  They don’t accept you exactly as you are, so they don’t deserve you anyway.  You can be part of my 'ohana if you want to be.  It’s loud, it’s large, and we’re a clan of lunatics, but if you accept us exactly as we are, we’ll accept you exactly as you are.  Here’s the main three you don’t know about._

_Lenny might pick on you because you don’t speak Russian, but don’t worry, I’ll teach you.  Lisa might pick on you because your clothes are kinda vanilla, but don’t worry, I’ll buy you fun clothes.  Mick might pick on you because you’re a vegetarian, but don’t worry, I’ll explain to him that you don’t eat meat because you think all lives matter._

_You may not think “all” includes you, but it does.  You are brave and brilliant, but even if you were neither of these things, you would still be important._

_I would never wish where I came from on anybody, but if you were there with me, you would’ve been smart enough to free us; and on the off-chance whatever plan you came up with failed, you would’ve kept trying until you found one that did._

Lisa slogged through a shower and wondered what the hell she was doing up this early when she came upon Hartley freakin’ Rathaway sobbing on Solnishko’s shoulder.  She snapped a pic for Crookbook, prepared some coffee and popcorn, and stood away from the fan because shit was about to hit it.

Caitlin wandered in just as her coworker told her Brüderchen with tear-stained cheeks and a crackling voice, “To everyone else, I’m Hartley; but to you, I’m Piper.”

Lisa wagged her eyebrows and offered Caitlin a mug.  Caitlin chugged it.  The one and only neighbor anywhere near safehouse #8 absolutely needed to visit the weekend his archnemesis was here.

By the terror on Hartley’s face, he must’ve connected those dots as well.  He fled as soon as he heard Cisco's primal, drawn-out yawn.  Solnishko inserted himself between them immediately, his eyes glowed, and his voice became dubstep Vader as he addressed Cisco, “ **I don’t expect you to be best friends, I don’t even expect you to be friends, all I expect you to be is ‘ohana.** ”

Movie buff Cisco assumed he had this in the bag, “‘Ohana means family, and family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten.”

“ **That too, but it also means nobody hurts each other no matter how mad we are,** ” all three boys calmed by the time Solnishko turned to Caitlin. “I’m sorry I’m not smart enough to figure anything out on my own, but what does it mean when you squeeze hands four times?  I want to do it to Piper, but I don’t want to do it without knowing what it means.”

“You’re not stupid, Brüderchen,” Caitlin assured him as she waved to her, Cisco, and Iris who’d congregated against the counter. “We’re stupid for forgetting to explain it to you.”

“I don’t know what it means either,” Hartley playfully nudged Solnishko’s arm, watching Cisco like mice watch hawks.

The girls lectured Cisco with their eyes until he stopped procrastinating to swallow his sip and surrendered, “It means ‘I love you unconditionally’.”

Hartley and Solnishko squeezed each other’s hand four times in sync.  Iris and Lisa were mid-awwwww when Mick marched in to deal with the commotion, “I know Lenny said you could come back at sunrise, but can’t you two have waited unt—” Mick smoldered on sight of Hartley.  With his hand on the corner connecting the hall and the main area, he hollered back into the abyss, “Lenny!!!”

The twins belatedly burst forth to assess the situation, fetched Robbie, and locked themselves inside the workshop by the time Len blearily ambled in.  Everybody else winced when they heard a soup of shouts and curses.  They winced again when a most-definitely-not-Clyde voice took his turn.

Len decided to host a group therapy session, starting with the twins, “What the hell is your problem???”

Whatever Clyde wanted to say dissolved into hacking and coughing, so Mark spoke—holy shit! Mark Mardon was speaking out loud!—for both of them, “Why didn’t der Mann in Gelb kill the rest of Solnishko’s family, too!?!  And why didn’t he kill Pied Piper!?!”

Joe gave the twins Robbie, they got along fine with the trio, and they didn’t have enough time to form an opinion about Hartley, so where was this coming from!?

The twins teared up, whimpered, and ducked their heads low and towards each other.  Mark gulped, “(We miss Solnishko!)”

Mick stood speechless.  Len quirked his eyebrow in confusion, “....You two see him weekdays at Saints & Sinners, you invite yourselves over or you invite him over for sleepovers every weekend, and you stayed all day yesterday; how could you possibly miss him???”

“(We’re used to having everybody we love right next to us, and Solnishko’s not next to us most of the time anymore,)” Mark lifted his head and sniffled guiltily.

Clyde buried his head into Mark’s shoulder and wailed, “And now that his boyfriend and his first family’s here, he’s gonna spend even less time with us now!!!”

Len raked his hand through his hair and handed Robbie to Mick, “Stay.” He dragged the Mardons by their upper arms, “C’mere, you two learn best with object lessons.” Everybody’s heads turned when Len emerged with the twins and pointed his arms towards the sky, “What does Solnishko’s name mean?”

Both Mardons looked like they were clawing out of a grave.  Clyde stubbornly delayed, “....Sunshine.”

“Is the sun always around?”

“No! Sometimes, it’s nighttime!”

“Does that mean the sun will never appear again?”

“No… it always comes back tomorrow.”

“That’s right. No matter how long the night lasts, the sun returns to our side of the planet eventually.  Solnishko has plenty of light for everyone, and if anyone douses his light, you two have first dibs on murdering them after Mick,” Len exhaled his exhaustion, patted their shoulders, and sent them on their way so he could wrangle his husband.  It was too early in the morning to be dealing with this shit; Len hadn’t even drunk a cup of coffee yet, dammit!  Lisa handed him his _Frozen_ mug, to which he yawned, “Thank god!”

The twins tramped over to the kitchen.  They glared at Hartley.  The latter eventually piped up, “This isn’t how my twin threesome fantasy begins, but by all means, please continue.”

The twins twitched at each other before they faced Hartley again.  Solnishko got up and squeezed the Mardons’ hands four times, “This means I love you unconditionally.  Even if I make friends with everybody in the world, I’ll still be friends with you.  But I’m not going to be friends with everybody in the world because I’d never be friends with der Mann in Gelb or Lewis or Clay or Tony or Flash.”

“Who the fuck are Flash and Tony!?” Clyde snarled as the twins returned the gesture to him.

“Flash won’t turn up again,” Solnishko hoped with his gaze downward. “Tony’s punches don’t hurt as much as der Mann in Gelb’s do, but he almost broke my ribs yesterday....”

“23 Rockefeller Road, apartment #4,” Iris informed them with a vengeful grin.

The twins exited with Clyde bellowing, “Murrrderrrrrrrrr!!!”

Caitlin, Iris, Lisa, Cisco, Solnishko, and Hartley all watched the door to ensure no more chaos would appear.  Lisa set her mug in the dishwasher, flicked a piece of popcorn into her mouth, and jested at Hartley, “Scared off yet?”

“They've been acting kinda funny ever since they moved out,” Solnishko defended them. “Maybe now that Lenny and I have talked to them, they’ll go back to normal… or at least as normal as it gets in this family.”

“Who’s Flash?” Iris asked. “Did he help der Mann in Gelb?”

“No,” Solnishko’s fists crinkled.  Lisa scrutinized him; this was her first time hearing about Flash too, yet she made the connection instantaneously. “Flash called himself a hero, but he was really a villain.  He had yellow lightning, and all he ever did with it was hurt Pied Piper....  You can’t have a Lilo without a Stitch or Lilo will get lonely, and you can’t have a Stitch without a Lilo or Stitch’ll obliterate everything.  Whether either of 'em realized it or not, Pied Piper only acted the way he did because he was a Stitch without a Lilo, and Flash was a Lilo without a Stitch.” Solnishko teared up at Hartley with his guiltiest face yet as horror chewed the room, “I’m sorry we weren’t ‘ohana in the original timeline, and I’ll understand if you don’t want to be ‘ohana in this one.”

Solnishko bolted off before anyone could say anything, and Hartley followed him.  Hartley was fluent in six languages and none of them were German, but he knew one word, and Caitlin called Solnishko that word without saying it like she was hauling a burden she never should’ve picked up.  Any hostility inside Cisco towards Hartley shut down as soon as Solnishko explained what ‘ohana meant for him.

That one word was “Brüderchen”.

Brüderchen ~ noun

  1. Bartholomew Henry Allen
  2. Barry
  3. The boy who vanished on the night of Nelson and Nona Neubert’s double homicide
  4. Solnishko Rory
  5. Piper’s Lilo



Len opened the door to the workshop and came upon Mick totally not venting at Robbie—see, she’s way over there!  Len cradled his mug, “We've known since the dawn of time, but I still need you to communicate coherently, so if you’re not finished growling at the dog, I will wait.”

Mick folded his arms tightly and roared, “....My baby brother just got to start being a kid last year, Lenny, I’m not ready for the teenage years yet!!!”

“And you think I was when Lisa turned thirteen!?” Len laughed incredulously. “News flash! Your baby brother is legally an adult.”

“So are Mark and Clyde; we don’t trust them to make grown-up decisions!”

“First of all, citing the twins as examples invalidates any argument.  Second of all, falling in love is not a grown-up decision as you and I know from experience.”

Mick's rage made him vibrate, “Rathaway graduated high school by the time Cub should’ve entered first grade!  Rathaway hits on every man he sees while Cub can’t tell when folks are flirting with him!  Rathaway is a loner; Cub has too many people in his life to ever be alone!  How the fuck are they ever gonna get along!?!”

“They’ll make it work,” Len sipped his bitterly silky brew before he set it on the workbench. “We’re talking about the same boy who wouldn’t show us anything he’d drawn in his Green Notebook for months because all anybody ever did in the original timeline was hurt Pied Piper; Solnishko refused to give anybody a chance to hurt him in this one.  If that’s how protective he is of drawings, how hard do you think he’ll fight for the real thing?  And if the glance I got of Rathaway’s face is any indication, he’ll fight just as hard for Solnishko....” Len may have come second to Batman in stoicism, yet Mick knew when his husband needed a hug, so Mick gave him one.  Len momentarily whispered into his husband's ear, “Rathaway’s face right now is the face I wore when I finally realized you would never hurt me like countless other people had in my life up to that point.”

The duo heard lightning thunder nearby.  Len and Mick came out in time to see Hartley rushing into the library like a dehydrated person runs towards a drop of water.  Mick growled, assuming Hartley had upset his Cub.  Len held him back and pulled up the security feed on his phone.

Hartley and Solnishko were sitting shoulder to shoulder on the floor against a bookshelf, “I’m not religious, but you plead a good case for the existence of angels.  You spent fourteen years in hell yet have been kinder to me in” he glanced at his watch “one fucking hour than everybody else in my life has combined!  ....Do you hold Pied Piper’s actions against me?”

“No! You’re not Pied Piper; you’re Piper!”

“And you are not Flash; you are… Blitz.  I can’t, won’t, and don’t hold Flash’s actions against you, and if there were any way to ask him, Pied Piper wouldn’t either, and neither should you,” Hartley wreathed his trembling friend. “Why do all of your tornados last less than a minute?”

Solnishko giggled drunkenly and splayed his arms, “If I run for longer than a minute, all of my clothes burst into flames!  Der Mann in Gelb had a yellow suit that got around this rule.  He probably still has it; he was always better at keeping track of his suit than his lightning.  He used to have red lightning, but then he lost it.”

“How exactly did he lose his lightning???” Hartley blinked with mouth opened halfway.

“I dunno,” Solnishko casually shrugged. “It just stopped showing up one day.  It never really listened to him even when it was around, yet he flipped out when it disappeared.”

They sat in silence for a moment while Solnishko closed his eyes and mouth to banish bad memories.  Hartley pulled out his phone and showed him a reinforced tripolymer suit he’d built for firefighters.  Solnishko scrambled into a corner as soon as he saw it.

“I have come to believe many impossible things today, but I refuse to believe you could ever become Flash,” Hartley assured him after correctly inferring he’d just shown off Flash’s suit. “I understand why it’s important to you to separate yourself from him.  Mister Ramon and I will design a new one for you… together… with Doctor Snow reminding us we’re ‘ohana every step of the way.”

“Are you sure???” Solnishko’s breathing rate normalized. “Suits are expensive.”

“We won’t be spending our money,” Hartley scoffed as he pocketed his phone. “Someone replaced the lock on my locker yesterday, and the skeleton key had vanished from the security office; I had to wait three hours for Doctor Wells to waddle his ass out of a board meeting and another half hour for him to locate it so I could eat my favorite lunch: humus, lettuce, green peppers, pickles, and extra cucumbers in a spinach wrap!  It turned up inside Mister Ramon’s desk—which is implausible at best because he wasn’t even there yesterday—and then he had the gall to ask if I wanted to play chess after my shift.” Solnishko blanched upon mention of that game. “Hell, no! Everybody already assumes I slept my way into my position; I won’t fuel their speculation by spending any more time with him than I am unavoidably mandated to.” Hartley shuddered, “Someone should give him a Robbie because chess is not healthy ventilation for whatever goes on inside his hurricane of a head.  I played that game with him for my job, and I never want to do it again.  He plays chess like he’s two people fighting over a dagger with a victim bound before them: one wants to save the victim while the other will stab whoever stands in his way.”

Solnishko took a deep breath.  Hartley helped him up.  The duo returned to the kitchen where Iris proudly wriggled her upturned face and slammed her Clarkian Cards onto the table, “Yahtzee!”

“Godammit, Iris, that’s your third Yahtzee in a row!” Lisa’s useless reverses fluttered when she furiously flung them into the air.

Solnishko zoomed over and double-checked Iris’s claim—he and twins horrendously discovered last night that Joe had raised a dirty rotten cheater!—and frowned, “Iris, this isn’t a Yahtzee.” Cisco and Lisa’s initial jubilation halted when Solnishko announced, “You’ve got a full house!!!”

Lisa and Cisco moaned when Iris’s tyranny quelled each and every rebellion.  Caitlin leaned against the counter and handed Hartley a bowl of popcorn, “Clarkian Cards is what happens when urchins teach themselves how to play poker with an Uno deck.  For obvious reasons, I prefer watching it, but we’ll teach you how to play if you want to learn.”

Mick grumbled as he emerged with Len following behind him.  Hartley froze, expecting trouble.  Undeterred, Mick advanced towards him, “Nobody’s teachin' ‘im how to play Clarkian Cards until Lenny and I teach ‘im how to lockpick!”

_Later that Day_

23 Rockefeller Road, apartment #4 had a scratched-up, kicked in door.  Its doorknob hadn’t shined ever since its current renter moved in.  The twins didn’t even need to lockpick it open: that’s how much it sucked.

They found Woodward in a dark hovel of shattered bottles, alcoholic odor, muscle shirts, and sweat stains.  Woodward winced at a hangover as he stood up from his mattress and grimaced at this ambush, “Who the hell are you two!?”

“(You’re not important enough to know our names,)” Mark signed.

Woodward leered at Clyde because the only hand gesture he knew was flipping the bird.  Clyde roared before the twins tackled him, “We’re here to beat the crap out of you today because yesterday, you beat the crap out of our little buddy!!!”

The twins returned to safehouse #8 in time for Hartley’s first viewing of _Lilo & Stitch_.  Hartley’s parents banned him from anything common.  They would also condemn his love for Solnishko and Solnishko's love for him, so the value of their tastes sunk to zero if it hadn't already.  They started off with _Hunchback of Notre Dame_ since that was the fanciest Disney movie in existence, but he insisted on watching his boyfriend’s favorite after lunch.

The twins washed their bruised and bloody knuckles before they grabbed some leftovers from the fridge as if they owned the place.  They joined the gang on the couch.  Hartley—who now happily owned a Eurasian lynx—shifted so the twins could sandwich Solnishko.  This garnered the twins’ approval.

Clyde poked Hartley from across Mark and Solnishko, “It doesn’t take much to make our little buddy so damn freakin’ happy; as long as you keep him happy, we’ll loan him out to you.”

Mark fisted Hartley’s hoodie and snarled a whisper, “But if you ever make him unhappy, Mick won’t get to claim his dibs if we’re closer!”

The twins folded their arms and simmered like bodyguards.  Their simmer boiled over after Hartley smirked, “On a scale of ‘hell no’ to ‘hell yes’, how do you two feel about deaf power-bottoming?”

The End!!!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for taking time to read this :) Whether you're on AO3 to write, read, or something else, I hope you enjoy what you do here and everywhere :3 See ya! Let me know what you think about this new batch of characters.


	2. Commentary

Okay, so this is the longest installment of STAR Blazers yet.  For reference, BaBW’s plot alone is over 10,000 words; the plot + commentary for the previous installments are less than 10,000 words each.

The first thing you may have noticed is that the series is called STAR Blazers now.  It quickly became apparent to me that Rogue in the Lightning didn’t fit anymore.  RitL implies one person, and while the series is Solnishko-centric, there are a lot of other people in this fic, and they deserve attention too.  Plus, with the path this series is taking, there’s not going to be a Rogues Gallery anyway.

Summary’s inspired by the show's opening monologue, title = a terrible pun on Build-a-Bear Workshop & canon!Barry's nickname, the door-slamming scene was inspired by the end of _The Song that Never Ends_.  I can't remember if Cisquito is canon or fanon; either way, it's not mine.  I did not write the songs I link to (except the parody), nor did I compose the videos.  I also did not paint the painting I link to.  "Plush Menagerie" is derived from Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie.  Hartley constructing Flash’s suit is inspired by a draft of the show's pilot where Hartley was on Team Flash right from the start.

Ignoring when everybody's birthdays fall (because the only character whose birthday I've decided is Solnishko's, and that was painful enough; I already can't math as it is, I won't attempt to calendar too) Caitlin's six years older than Solnishko, Iris is five years older than Solnishko, Cisco is four years older than Solnishko, and Hartley's the same age as Solnishko, who's 18 if you've forgotten.  Don't worry if you did, I forgot how many bedrooms safehouse #8 has because I've flip-flopped on the exact number at least a dozen times.

While writing this, I thought the arrowverse wiki stated that canon!Caitlin has a sister somewhere.  Turns out, that sister is a brother, and it's Earth-2 Caitlin's brother.  However, that brother is named Charlie, which is a neutral name, so I'm just gonna go ahead and leave STAR Blazers!Charlie a girl.  STAR Blazers!Caitlin already has plenty of brothers anyway.

Marco & Claudio are Mark & Clyde's names in the comics; Jerrie is the name of comic!Hartley's sister.  I've repurposed them.

I know canon!Nora's maiden name isn't Neubert, but just roll with it, bitte :)  How many Flash fics can you name where Nora's not the victim of Eobard's vendetta against Barry???  Plus, how can you resist such beautiful alliteration: Nora Neubert.  They even have the same amount of syllables!

 

_Wind chimes announced the arrival of Central City’s #1 parka partisan hand in hand with a spindly boy whose gaze snapped around the Motorcar.  Maple syrup and barbeque sauce perfumed and painted the diner.  A jukebox in a corner operated more on punches than quarters.[Elvis drawled about a blue Christmas ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uwfz5mMLSDM)even though New Year’s was a week ago.  Two-seat booths framed ¾ of the perimeter, the kitchen and the bathroom dominated the far wall, and four-seat booths congregated in the center._

Okay, so I know that this isn’t what the Motorcar looks like as depicted in canon, however, it is damn near impossible to find screenshots for it (and Saints & Sinners); plus, I wrote this before I watched Garrick lecture Barry during season three.  Granted, it’s not like I’m sticking faithfully to info from any other season, but I figured I should warn you about that.

Also, if you’re reading this, you probably read my previous commentaries.  Please ignore everything I’ve said about the Speed Force thus far; I have a better idea.  This is the main reason why I (try to) refrain from discussing future plans.  STAR Blazers is a work in progress; my future plans today might not end up becoming implemented when the future arrives.

 

_They just sat down—elder outside, youth inside—when an artsy-scarfed woman flurried in slipping on stray snowflakes.  She laughed it off because she totally intended to do that, scooched into her father’s side of the booth, and introduced herself to the stranger across from her, “Hi! I’m Iris; you must be Mick’s little brother.”_

STAR Blazers!Iris holds the rather strange accolade of behaving more like canon!Barry than Solnishko does.  As much as I love blasé!Iris, Shawna’s time in Gotham gives her the monopoly on blasé.

 

_“Servus!” her gymnastics awed him. “Lisa, Mark, and Clyde have told me a lot about you.”_

Originally, Iris just knew Lisa, but then I got everybody over to safehouse #8 and realized Mark and Clyde barely interact with Iris: the daughter of the man who gave them Robbie; so I decided that them knowing each other in advance was the best fix-it.

 

_She retrieved a floppy package covered in Starry Night wrapping paper from her coat and handed it over._

Not sure why I made STAR Blazers!Iris a van Gogh aficionado.  All I know is that I saw _Irises_ and couldn’t stop laughing at how ridiculously stupid it would be for Solnishko to give a copy of it to her.  There are a couple different versions of _Irises_ , which is why I included a link to the version I favor in the fic.  If you don’t know what _Starry Night_ looks like, I just can’t even.

 

_The level of detail floored her.  The grape-like cluster in the middle was as off-center here as it was in the original.  Van Gogh himself wouldn’t be able to tell the difference._

And once again, I am tasked with doing my least favorite thing to do as a writer: describe a purely visual piece of art.

 

_Cait’s in bed on literal doctor’s orders_

Henry hasn’t officially appeared yet, nor has he even had a single line of dialog (and there’s a good reason for that).  He always had an excellent work ethic, but then Barry disappeared, and he started working more.  It’s gotten to the point that his workplace has become his world.  The irony that I might eventually have somebody (most likely Nora) point out to him is that if he didn’t work so many hours to grieve his missing son, he’d realize that his son was no longer missing.  Needless to say, he’s in for culture shock when he finally shows up.

 

_I was so excited; Cait had two little brothers and a little sister already, and I wanted to be big sister, too._

I only killed off STAR Earth Charlie & Wally.  I won't say more because it's gonna take forever for them to appear.

 

_Iris’s jaw crashed into the chessboard floor_

Most folks use the term “checkerboard floor”, but that implies black & white and metallic, especially in a dining setting; I was picturing brown & tan and wooden like a chessboard.

 

_The holidays weren’t too hectic to introduce Iris to the twins, so was Len up to?_

This was the other advantage of Iris knowing the twins already: flagging West Bullshit Radar®!

 

_Joe finally connected the dots when Len’s abrupt change of mind coincided with the anniversary of Wally and Francine’s deaths._

I dunno how easy this is to infer, but Iris holds little, if any, affection for her mother.  Joe, however, cares for Francine deeply.  He was under the mistaken impression that her drug addiction was in the past, and for the most part it was, yet I think one bad day snapped her.

 

_Flustered, he apologized, which Iris waved off, “Don’t worry, you’re a first-timer.  Just do what I do; I’m a veteran around here!” Iris selected a hyena after a moment’s deliberation, brought Solnishko to the stuffing station and snapped her fingers at a vulpine-eyed lady, “Linda Park, scooch your booch over here!”_

I think Iris’s characterization is best described as “if it makes me happy and doesn’t myself or others, I’m gonna go ahead and do it without giving a damn about what other people think”.

 

_Linda almost got through telling them that they didn’t need to do the heart ritual before Solnishko spun in place.  She smiled and shook her head as she walked her dweeby college roommate and her equally dweeby new friend through it anyway, ending with the boy kissing his heart on Iris’s forehead and Iris returning the gesture on his cheek because there was no way she’d reach his forehead._

_Those two brought today’s total of overaged customers up to five.  The goth blond half of a pair was louder than a party of seven-year-olds while the pumpkin spice half never spoke a word.  The last one felt like a dork the entire time, yet he insisted on doing the heart ritual because his pug was a peace offering that wouldn’t be as peaceful if he built it wrong._

_Linda frowned internally as Iris and Solnishko perused the clothing; her new job at CCPN would keep her from being here for her friend on one of the worst days of her life.  Another bad day eventually changed her career choice.  Her father had a big damn speech and a PowerPoint presentation prepared about the dangers of law enforcement.  His initial relief at Iris switching to journalism faded when West Bullshit Radar® nagged him into questioning her._

To be honest, Linda’s here mostly for exposition purposes.  She’s one of the few characters who is a member of neither the Stein-West-Allen clan nor the Rory-Snart clan, so she can justify an outsider’s perspective on the members she encounters.

Oh, and Iris is totally diving into law enforcement after the particle accelerator explodes, btw :3 :3 :3 :3 :3

 

_Solnishko swiped through his phone and showed her his first photo ever and explained it was from the day his brother adopted him, “Mick’s the best birthday present ever, even though he was a day late.”_

Awwwwwww

 

_“....Your birthday is June 20 th?” _

_“Yep!”_

_“Okay, this is gonna sound like a crazy invasive question, but what’s your blood type?”_

_“AB+,” he chirped as Iris swiped her Bear Buck$ card.  Henry insisted on testing everybody as soon as possible after three babies and a toddler bled out on him in the same day._

Joe was told Solnishko was Barry.  Len figured it out whenever Solnishko began speaking German.  Iris figured it out all on her own.  Plus, she and Caitlin have a photo of Barry in their apartment on an appliance they interact with every day, so she’s probably got his eyes memorized whether she made the “hey, Solnishko’s eyes look like Barry’s” connection or not.

 

_She would’ve begun an inquisition if her boyfriend hadn’t shown up and physically objected to her holding hands with someone else.  Security came at her call and manhandled the muscleman away from Solnishko and #FAR Junior’s crushed home._

Woodward gets a minimalist description because he’s going to reappear again.  Theoretically, so will Linda.  I’m still on the fence about whether or not Linda should gain Dr. Light’s powers since I have no plans to bring in her TESS Earth counterpart.  My main opposition to this notion is that the good guys will have tons of metas already, do I really wanna deal with another one???  Granted, just because she has powers doesn’t mean she has to do anything with them.

 

_Sweat fogged over to a gray-haired driver from the hockey players who congregated in the back.  Both parties asked if they could do anything to help—the entire team volunteered to beat the crap out of Tony, afterwards the driver told the athletes to get in line—but Solnishko shook his head no.  The driver glanced at him every so often, worry wrinkling her face each time.  The hockey players tightened their grip on their sticks and helmets as Solnishko clutched his ribs and heaved._

This bus driver is based on my high school bus driver; the hockey players are just hockey players.

 

_Iris drew him in while he whimpered, “People pick on me cuz they think I act weird on purpose.  I try to act normal—I swear, I try—but it never works cuz der Mann in Gelb made sure I’ll never be normal no matter what I do!”_

_Mick answered Iris’s phone before it tolled twice, “Cub, we’ve talked about this.  You’re never in the wrong for actin’ like yourself cuz yourself is kind and smart.  Stick with Iris, I’ll be right over.”_

I know just about everybody in this series has more quirks than eyelashes, but these folks are wounded at best, ripped apart at worst.  And even if their lives were perfectly great, they’d still have a right to their quirks.  No matter how normal or unique you think you are or anybody else is, we all deserve friends and a family who love us exactly as we are.

 

_Iris took back her phone, and with a bit of maneuvering, managed to squeeze Solnishko’s hand four times and text Cisco._

Iris wouldn’t be “the most persistent investigator alive” if she didn’t have faith that she’d find Barry alive even after all these years.  She may not have found Barry, yet she found her lost cousin.  She can’t bring him home because he already has a home.  Never give up on your dreams, but don’t get locked into an A to Z plan that you can’t accept them coming true differently than how you imagined, because how they actually come true might be just as good, if not better, than what you imagined.

 

_Caitlin glowered at the intruder with tight, silent breaths._

Caitlin reminds me of one of my cats here.

 

_What Cisco thought would break the ice between them only chilled it further, “Do you know Iris from school?”_

_“No… der Mann in Gelb never let me go anywhere....”_

Keep in mind that Barry’s biggest dream was to go to school.  Solnishko gets to be homeschooled in the next part by his other set of grandparents, interestingly enough.

 

_Iris showed Solnishko a photo of Nora and Henry: a slow head shake._

_Martin and Clarissa: another head shake._

_Nona and Nelson—whose murders Barry might’ve witnessed: scrunched eyebrows, yet ultimately nothing._

Nona Neubert, Nelson Neubert, and Nora Neubert....  Yes, I totally picked their names for alliteration and two syllables.  As any troper knows, family theme naming is all the rage!  The Snarts all have two-syllable L names: Lewis, Leonard, Lisa, Lowell, and Lori (the last of which aren’t canon in the show, but whatever).

 

_Anxiety conquered Iris as she flipped to a picture of her, Cisco, and Caitlin interlocking arms one year before Barry was kidnapped.  What if he didn’t recognize them?_

_What if Solnishko wasn’t Barry after all???_

One type of literary irony is dissonance between what the readers know and what the characters know.  We all know how this is gonna go down, yet Iris and her cousins most certainly don’t.

 

_That’s the girl who talks, that’s the boy who laughs, and that’s the girl who sings!_

Each of these 3 things are activities Solnishko either had little, if any, reason to do or simply wasn’t allowed to do growing up.

 

_“|It’s him....|” Cisco muttered in Spanish, supporting his Schwester as much as she supported him.  He avoided Solnishko because looking at him was as painful as being electrocuted. “|Iris said she’d find him and she did!|”_

The entirety of my knowledge of the Spanish language comes from _Dora Explorer_ and _Go Diego Go_ , so rather than trying to form a coherent sentence in a language I know nothing about, I opted to insert sticks.

I also love making Caitlin, Cisco, and Solnishko siblings because a) it makes the dynamics between them and Iris much more interesting to me and b) I don’t have to deal with Cisco’s biological family or Caitlin’s biological mother (whom I killed off before I saw her on the show).  I don’t like canon!Caitlin’s mother, can’t you tell?  Her husband’s been dead for years, yet she’s still ignoring her daughter???  Heck no, ain’t nobody got time for that!  All seeing her on the show made me decide was to leave her out later on when the TESS Earth crew immigrates to STAR Earth.  There will be a parent who’s ignoring their child to grieve, but that parent and child’s loss will be recent and raw.

 

_Caitlin’s joy manifested as tears and sniffles.  Solnishko flitted his gaze from her, to Iris, to Cisco, and to Caitlin again, “Are you not used to hearing compliments?  That’s okay, neither am I,” which only added more rain to the flood, “but I’m getting better at it!”_

Epic fail

 

_Solnishko would need somebody to tell him he was Barry, cuz every time he put two and two together, he got fish… or flagpole… or upside-down chair._

Solnishko isn’t stupid, he’s just better at rote memorization than inferring information.  With his powers, he can hear a fact once, and it’d be like a normal person hearing it 60 times.  All types of intelligence are valid in both fiction and reality.  Even the [experts](http://skyview.vansd.org/lschmidt/Projects/The%20Nine%20Types%20of%20Intelligence.htm) agree that there’s more types of intelligence than SATs test for.  If your country doesn’t have Stupid Ass Tests or their vomit-enducing cousins, congratulations, your culture cares about its students :)

Also, fish cuz 22.  Flagpole & upside-down chair represent both methods of writing fours.

 

_If his family didn’t know that, they wouldn’t know keeping his closet full of crap would keep him from hunkering in there whenever he committed even a minor infraction.  They wouldn’t know he needed glow-in-the-dark stars and at least two blankets at night because der Mann in Gelb left him cold and alone in the dark for weeks on end.  They wouldn’t know he’d want hugs every day yet fear asking for them half the time after fourteen years of never getting a single thing he wanted.  It took a crew months to learn these things; Nora was a homemaker, but the rest of his family couldn’t simply drop everything for a tutorial on how to take care of him without alerting der Mann in Gelb._

This is basically Nani’s horror at Bubbles confiscating Lilo in a nutshell.  Seeing as how inspired I was by _Lilo & Stitch_, I definitely wanted to include this in Mick’s reaction to Solnishko meeting his first family.

 

_“You found Barry,” Caitlin got up, laid her hands on Mick’s shoulders, and looked up at him guiltily. “How can we ever thank you for that!?!”_

You know all hell has broken loose when your leader freaks out.  As the oldest, that’s what Caitlin is to this group.  She’s also the older twin if I forgot to mention it anywhere else.

 

_Solnishko frowned, frozen on the spot ever since Caitlin called him Barry.  He didn’t even seem to be breathing.  His eyes went unblinking.  He blubbered weakly, “I don’t know how to be Barry Allen; it’s hard enough being Solnishko Rory half the time!  ....But if you only want me as Barry Allen, I’ll try my best....”_

_Caitlin’s already unkempt hair frazzled further.  She looked straight up at him and cupped his face, “Solnishko, listen to me: if somebody—anybody—doesn’t accept you exactly as you are, they don’t deserve you, do you hear me!?”_

It was important to me that Caitlin call him by name to signal her acceptance of him.  I know I flip-flopped between calling him Barry and Solnishko back in my previous commentaries, but from now on, I’m gonna keep his preferred name in mind.  It’s kinda like a transgender individual desiring to be called Alexander rather than Alexie.  Solnishko refuses the codename Flash on similar grounds: he doesn’t want to become Flash… or at least, Flash from the limited & biased clips Eobard showed him.

 

_“I am not ma’am, Brüderchen,” Caitlin shook her head, pecked his forehead, and squeezed his hand four times. “I am Caitlin or Cait; either way, I’m Schwester.”_

_“And I’m Cisco!”_

_“Or Cisquito!”_

_“No!” Cisco hissed at Iris. “Don’t you dare infect his virgin ears with your dumpster language!” He clamped his hand over Iris’s mouth, “I’m Hermano!”_

Here’s those lovely family dynamics I warned you about.

 

_“I’m Cousin: derived from basic, boring English.”_

You can throw a dart at STAR Blazers and anything it lands on is likely to be there solely because it amuses me.  This is one of those lines.

 

_Mick scoffed, “Don’t be ridiculous, Mama Rory—”_

_“The Bearded Lady!” Solnishko grinned cheekily._

_Mick gave him a noogie, “Taught me a recipe that’ll fix ya right up by dinnertime.”_

Running gags! Aka the embodiment of every eco-friendly author’s mantra: reduce, reuse, recycle.

 

_Cisco kept a stockpile of clothes at the girls’ place after his aborted stint on the ultimate Frisbee team last year_

The best part about noodle incidents is that all I have to do is string any random sequence of words together and invite you people use your imaginations.  I’ve warned y’all multiple times that I’m the Laziest Author in Existence, and pulling stunts like this is why.

 

_Leah and Leia da Vinci—Caitlin’s snowy owls—and Sally Dalí: Cisco’s bunny_

1)     Yes, Caitlin built an plushie for both herself and her twin. So sue me.

2)     Originally, Caitlin’s animals were penguins, then I remembered Penguin actually exists in this ‘verse.  Plus, Caitlin’s more of a snowy owl anyway.

3)     The genders of the members of the Plush Menagerie don’t necessarily correspond with the genders of their person counterparts.  If you read 5+1 first, you’ll have realized this by now with Captain Songh and Robbie & Captain Singh and Rob.  Iris built most of them, so I figured she’d want most of them to be girls cuz girl power!

 

_“You betcha!” hummed Cisco, with the girls agreeing. “Plushies are awesome at crossing species boundaries compared to quote-on-quote ‘real’ animals!”_

_They rock-paper-scissored for the right to sit next to Solnishko: Cisco won._

Notice all of these interactions between Solnishko & Cisco yet no squeezing hands four times.  This was intentional, as was waiting to explain its meaning.

 

_“Because Solnishko’s not ready for all of us, honey.  Hell! He can’t even bring himself to call me Joe, and he’s known me since November; he doesn’t need the pressure of calling me Uncle Joe,” he sighed patiently.  He missed Solnishko, too, but he’d wait as long as Solnishko needed. “Keep him a secret.  There are good reasons why Len and the gang didn’t go shouting from the rooftops as soon as they figured out Solnishko's identity, and one of 'em rhymes with ‘slur pawn min’… well, nothing really rhymes with ‘Gelb’.”_

Ah, Joe: Officer Reality Check & the embodiment of parental patience blended with secret spices and humor.

 

_The closest neighbor—someone with a green flag on their mailbox—lived over an hour away._

GREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEN!!!

Originally, my plan was to introduce Hartley in a later installment....  I’m so glad I rolled with letting him appear in this one.

 

_Len grumbled as he picked a golden retriever up off the floor.  Lisa dismissed him, “You know they only leave stuff here so they have an excuse to visit.”_

_“They don’t need an excuse to visit, they need to keep their crap out of my neat and tidy—get your ass off my counter!” Len swatted her away._

The immediately preceding line is another line that highly amuses me.

 

_Len sanitized the counter for the seventh time today, “Nothing is bugging me.”_

_“You know who says that?” Lisa tucked Robbie under her arm. “People who are being bugged.”_

This also amuses me.

 

_Len crinkled his paper towel, “....Did I time this right?  Should I have waited??  Should I have acted sooner???” Lisa perked an eyebrow, impatiently waiting for him to continue. “40% of Central City is multilingual, and of that 40%, only 20% are fluent in German.  Of that 20%, only one individual is a hazel-eyed, brunet boy born on June 20 th who vanished.  I’ve been keeping Joe’s nephew from him this entire time!”_

I hope Len’s crisis of faith isn’t OOC.  I debated forever whether or not to include that last line to the point that I forgot I included it until I worked on this commentary.  I’m glad it’s in here, though.  I always worry my lines are too squished together to read between.  Len’s loyalty is difficult to earn, yet once earned, it’s deep.  He probably feels like he betrayed Joe every day he delayed and betrayed Solnishko every day he didn’t delay.  Needless to say, this is the most important heist in his career.

I’m sure he knew all about Barry’s glow-in-the-dark stars and bought Solnishko a new pack hoping it might jog his memory along with keeping him calm at night.  This sure casts a new light over his words about Joe during JWYM, too....

 

_Lisa placed her free hand on her brother’s shoulder, “You remember when Mick first brought him home; Solnishko was a mess—a cute mess—but a mess.  He didn’t wanna watch Finding Nemo or Finding Dory because those movies are about families looking for their lost children.  He didn’t think his family did that for him, and the only person who could show him that wasn’t true needed a buddy not yesterday, not tomorrow, today,” she smiled tearfully. “Plus, this way, he got a raccoon out of it.”_

I am man enough to admit that I cried multiple times while writing this fic; this paragraph is one of those times.  Also, go Lisa for being a good sibling.  I feel bad cuz it seems like she hasn’t gotten much to do lately, is completely absent during 5+1, doesn't have a huge role in UWMA, & will have a mention at most in part 7 (assuming my plans don’t derail by then, which I should know from experience by now, they will).

 

_Len smiled at a photo of Solnishko and #FAR Junior Iris had sent Lisa: a moment which was ruined by Clyde blaring, “[This is the heist that never starts / we’ve waited so long now it smarts / our leader started planning it without enough intel / he says we won’t heist again until it’s cold in hell!!! ](https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=lamb+chop+song+that+never+ends&view=detail&mid=1114ADB4476A5972D7B41114ADB4476A5972D7B4&FORM=VIRE)”_

You either love the twins or you hate them, and I’m okay with that.  They act like children because they haven’t had anybody tell them “no” or even remotely discipline them since they were ten (except for a guilt trip from Clarissa).  Len, Mick, Shawna, and Lisa nonviolently dealing with the twins acting wild and obnoxious is a good object lesson for Solnishko.

 

_Rustic sensibilities shined through its reddish-brown slab and thick, rougher legs.  Intricacies included donuts connecting brick-shaped calves to rounded lower sections.  Matching thrones were as imposing and proud as its artisan.  Mick’s masterpiece scoffed at anybody who fretted about elbow room._

I feel pathetic about describing safehouse #8 because we probably won’t see much more of it after this.

 

_We built foxes_

Marco and Claudio are foxes; meanwhile, Zvezdo and Zvezda (Len and Lisa, respectively) and Summer (Mick) are wolves.  This is because in the criminal underworld, Mark and Clyde are to Len and Mick like foxes are to dogs: small and insignificant.  If a couple of foxes picked a fight with a couple of wolves, the winner’s decided before the fight begins.

 

_Thank you so much for wanting both of us.  Most folks only want one of us; it’s hard to keep siblings together_

So if you know absolutely nothing about the American adoption system, it sucks; however, it’s a better alternative to not having an adoption system at all.

 

_In sync, the twins snatched up their foxes and tickled Solnishko with their flossy tails.  Solnishko would push one back only for the other to worm under his armpit._

I recycled this one-sided tickle fight from a Mick-Solnishko moment in one of my (many) drafts of JWYM.  I dunno how much sense it makes out of context, but here it is for your reading pleasure.

 

 

> “Share the electronics,” Solnishko heard Len nag distantly. “Warn somebody if you go outside to run.”
> 
> “Go away!” Solnishko replied to him while he nudged Mick towards the door.  Without superhuman momentum in his corner, it was as futile as pushing a sumo wrestler.  He looked Mick straight in the eye and whine-grunted.  This expression dissolved as he followed Mick into the garage, bore into him for a hug, and whimpered, “Stay safe.”
> 
> “Don’t start cryin’ now; we haven’t left yet,” Mick enfolded him and spoke as soothingly as he could muster.  A year or two ago, he’d never imagine his voice would ever need this tone on a regular basis.  Sure, Len and Lisa had nightmares once in a blue moon, but Solnishko’s memories began with terror, and really, it was pure dumb luck Mick found him at all.  Mick’s sandpapery hands lifted Solnishko’s creamy chin, “We’re coming back, ya know—and ya got Mark and Clyde here!”
> 
> Solnishko looked at him like he was offering ice and cream as a substitute for ice cream.  All of Solnishko’s teeth were sweet.  He reluctantly turned to leave, pouted, and hunched with his hands in his pockets.  Mick wormed a finger under Solnishko’s armpit.  A yip preceded a zip over the threshold.  Solnishko poked his head out and declared with a glare, “This justifies vengeance!”

 

_He panted as he introduced the twins to the trio, “That’s Cait, you already know Iris, and… they can’t decide what I’m supposed to call him, but he’s my hermano.  His first family didn’t want him, so Mrs. Stein took him home.  The adoption agency said she and Professor Stein were too old to adopt and Detective West was too busy to adopt, but Mrs. Allen wasn’t, so she and Doctor Allen adopted him.”_

1)     “too old to adopt” keeps my environmental science teacher (aka, the most brilliant, caring, & professionally humorous person on the planet) from adopting.  It is the most fucking terrible excuse to deny an orphan a home.  People who should be grandparents give birth nowadays; folks are living longer than ever.  What the hell, adoption agencies!?!

2)     Detective West being denied is a no-brainer: he’s a widower in a high stakes job.  Iris basically lived at her aunt and uncle’s house growing up.  He barely has time to fill out paperwork for his actual job, never mind for an adoption.

3)     I’m not a doctor nor do I have an interest to become entrenched in anything within a medical field, but I imagine Henry’s job kept him pretty busy even before he started taking extra shifts.

4)     Solnishko refers to Nora, Henry, Martin, and Clarissa as Mrs. Allen, Doctor Allen, Professor Stein, and Mrs. Stein because he hasn’t even met them yet.  He has no relationship with them; it makes no sense for him to call them Mutti, Vati, Opa and Oma.

5)     Solnishko’s gonna end up calling somebody other than Henry “Vati” anyway, and I bet y’all are smart enough to figure out who :) I believe in you :D :D :D :D :D

6)     The other thing keeping my teacher from adopting is she's apparently too poor to adopt.  This is bullshit; poor people have kids all the time.  People joke about how appallingly little teachers get paid, but news flash, teachers have kids all the time too!  Who cares how much you make? It's how you manage what you make that counts.

 

_"Names!” Clyde demanded.  Mark’s eyes fumed as intensely as Clyde’s voice. “We got murders to plan!”_

In Mark and Clyde’s book, nothing less than 100% is acceptable in parenthood.  If you don’t love all your kids, you don’t deserve any kids.

 

_Cisco kicked an imaginary soda can as he lugged his luggage by hand over the carpet.  He bounced back quickly, “I don’t care that my first family didn’t want me.” He looked at Len and Lisa; both approved of his next words. “Some bastards hate their kids yet won’t let ‘em go....  Ya know what they say; if ya love something, set it free!”_

Awwwwwwww

Yes, this fic ships Goldvibe. Shut up.

 

_Mark and Clyde still wanted to plan murders though, so Mick defused them, “Do you wanna give some bastards fifteen minutes of fame, or do you want to focus your attention on folks who matter?”_

This was originally a Len line; it works much better as a Mick line.

 

_Solnishko paused at the door to Shawna’s room and sighed, “Shawna’s back in Gotham for school.  I miss her.”_

Apologies for Shawna’s absence, folks, but she needs to actually student at some point.  I debated having her appear in time to hear Hartley’s “deaf power-bottoming” proposition to the twins and then leave without a word, but I was like “nope, BaBW’s ending on deaf power-bottoming”.  I have no clue how power-bottoming would work in a threesome but apparently Hartley does.

 

_She talks like their deaths were her fault.  She talks like lots of stuff is her fault_

Hopefully, the reveal that Caitlin feels responsible for Solnishko’s disappearance isn’t as out of nowhere as Mark and Clyde wanting to keep Solnishko all to themselves or Shawna = Nightwing.  Solnishko may not be able to figure out the reasons behind others’ emotions (and honestly, who’d be able to figure this out except for Caitlin?), but he’s more than capable of sensing others’ emotions.

 

_The twins briefed everybody on their fleet of model biplanes and jets hanging from the ceiling.  Nobody could walk more than four feet in any direction without bumping into one._

No, they haven’t moved all of their stuff out yet and they never will.  This is called College Student Syndrome despite neither Mark nor Clyde making as far as middle school.

 

_“You have stars in your room at Mutti and Dad's house, too.  You hated being alone in the dark.”_

_“Really? That hasn’t changed much; now, I don’t like being cold or alone in the dark, but I would rather be cold and in the dark than alone....  Do my old stars have names?”_

_“No,” Caitlin shook her head minutely._

_“Oh. Well, I was little, so I guess I didn’t think of it back then,” Solnishko foraged his desk for three stars and handed one to each member of the trio. “Everybody should have a name....”_

:(

 

_These are my shoelaces!!!  These are the cool-colored ones, these are the warm-colored ones, these are the multicolored ones, and these are the sparkly ones!” He slid his closet open and revealed a hodgepodge of laceless men’s, women’s, and children’s footwear.  He nudged escapees back into the stockpile, “What are your sizes?  If you see any pairs you like that fit, Lenny’ll set you up with laces_

If you can accept Solnishko wanting to be called neither Barry nor Flash, then hopefully accepting his shoelace collection is easy by comparison.

 

_Caitlin was too stunned to process anything; responsibility compelled her to ask if it was truly okay for Solnishko to buy so many shoes he’d never wear....  Then she remembered that interest on savings from the early days and a healthy portfolio could keep all eight safehouses ready to use and Saints & Sinners in the black even if Len sat on his ass and replayed Frozen all day._

Len and Mick aren’t Rathaway rich or Wayne wealthy, but they’re well enough off that Solnishko cleaning out a shoe store involves nothing more than pocket change.

 

_Cisco snatched up sleek, black-and-purple high tops, “If it’s for free, it’s for me!”_

Alright, I know STAR Blazers is so canon non-compliant, you can count the amount of times it complies with canon on one hand, but you’re not convincing me that canon!Cisco wouldn’t say this.  The shoes he picks out are based on mine, btw.

 

_Mick set out a bowl of Mama Rory’s Cure for Everything by Dinnertime™: earthen-perfumed chowder with melted cheese, dark herbs, and chicken._

This is based off something I ate in a restaurant.  I don’t remember it’s name, but the main difference between MRCED and what I ate is that what I ate also had a dollop of sour cream and a swatch of shredded cheese.  I’m not an expert at curing folks by dinnertime, but I’m pretty sure sour cream would be unconducive to that goal.

 

_Solnishko robed her with his raccoon quilt_

Mark & Clyde made this with Grammy’s kit & Mick’s help.  One of these days, I'll get around to writing the piece where the twins learn to quilt; sadly, today is not that day.

 

_This exercise trained Cisco up from the slowest person in gym class to the 2 nd slowest person in gym class!_

As the 2nd slowest person in gym class on a good day, I applaud Cisco.  I was going to write a line stating that after Barry disappeared, Cisco became slower, but I figured it’d be best to stay positive.

 

_“I’m faster now!” Solnishko was raring to impress the trio, who nodded blankly, because why wouldn’t an eighteen-year-old be faster than a four-year-old?_

Hahahahahahahaha

I feel like you could make a drinking game out of how many misunderstandings arise in STAR Blazers.

 

_Solnishko got into position and Clyde counted him down, “73, 86, 54—hike!”_

Mark and Clyde understand the rules of football as much as they understand the rules of poker: not at all.

It also amuses me that Clyde’s using a football countdown rather than a NASA countdown.

 

_“Brüderchen has freakin’ superpowers!!!” Cisco recovered first when Solnishko zipped back over to the others._

At this point, STAR Blazers!Cisco and canon!Cisco have the best shot at recognizing each other.

 

_I don’t deserve you anyway; I put you in danger.  If I complained about school as often as Cisco did or even as infrequently as Iris did, wouldn’t you have been content to stay home and never have been kidnapped???_

Because I’m a terrible person, the answer is no.

 

_The trio paled when Solnishko summarized der Mann in Gelb’s journey from the future specifically to murder him, but der Mann in Gelb’s lightning said no, so he had to wait for someone—Capone, Malone, Solnishko didn’t remember the exact name—to build the cold gun since that was the only weapon with the icepower to knock out speedster healing._

_Wild blueprints appeared on Cisco's workbench last year.  Hartley and Caitlin didn’t know where they came from.  They were too tempting to pass up, and before he knew it, he’d constructed some partners to go with it.  He’d debuted them the day after Barry’s birthday._

Again, I’m a terrible person.

 

_“Len! You can find anything; you gotta find the cold gun!  I’m not letting der Mann in Gelb murder Brüderchen with something I built! Or at all!!!”_

_“A fake janitor stole it along with the heat gun and the gold gun!” Iris panicked, having blogged about the heist herself. “Cameras were down all day, so it could’ve been anybody!”_

_“You doofuses!” Caitlin slapped her hermano and cousin with one motion, then flourished her arm at thundering Mick and Clyde, barely contained Lisa and Mark, smirking Len, and Solnishko.  The latter assumed this was news was so old, it was in a retirement home._

Ah, the slap of reason: classic.

 

_“No!” Len balked at these ridiculous, naïve children. “Never keep anything in a safe; all somebody has to do is take the safe with them, and they can crack it from the comfort of home.”_

I have no idea how viable this advice is.  Don’t get your thieving tricks from me because ~~you might get caught~~ stealing’s illegal.

 

_Compared to her cousins, Iris strayed dangerously close to a life of crime.  Aside from smuggling Barry next door, she also stole a handful of their grandmother’s cookies… without sharing a single one! “Ah, the voice of experience.”_

_“Ah, the voice of someone whose idea of thievery comes from Elder Scrolls,” Lisa quipped._

_Mark held up crossed victory Vs as Clyde and Solnishko posed like Power Rangers, “Go Team Dunmer!”_

_“Skyrim for the Nords!!!” Cisco retaliated._

_“Babysitting,” Len shook his head at his chuckling husband. “Greatest thieves alive, and we are relegated to babysitting.”_

_“You children are all dumb,” declared Lisa despite being younger than 3/4 of the group she addressed.  She wriggled into a spot between them behind the couch. “Obviously, an Altmer can electrocute all of you before any of you even see her.”_

_Cue Princess Bride-style booing._

Lol

 

_Steering the conversation back on track, Solnishko said, “My first memory is der Mann in Gelb showing me footage of me fighting Pied Piper.”_

_“Wait, what? You’re a superhero in the future!?!” Cisco squealed._

_“Uh-huh,” Solnishko nodded, then opened his eyes. “I don’t think I was a good one though, cuz I didn’t recognize the look in Pied Piper’s eyes.”_

You know that drinking game I mentioned?  You’d probably black out by now.

 

_Cisco slipped his hands across his scalp before clapping them in front of his mouth and closed his eyes, boiling.  The only thing that kept him from erupting was Solnishko shuddering, “His gloves don’t hurt as much as the cold gun does, but they shatter all my ribs in one blast._

Yo, by the way, Hermano, that thing you built that can kill me feels worse than all of my ribs shattering.

 

_Solnishko had been battling guilt over his counterpart’s abuse of Pied Piper since day one.  The gang hadn’t told him about #Rathagay yet because the best day of Solnishko’s life was the anniversary of the worst day of this timeline’s version of Pied Piper’s.  Media vultures plastered him all over Central, his parents disowned him overnight, and his boyfriend wouldn’t weather the storm.  Hartley was ragged by the time he reached STAR Labs.  Oh sure, he cologned himself in confidence during his interview with Doctor Wells, but all he had to his name was his flute, laptop, PhD, and the outfit he was wearing._

This paragraph is for the benefit of my friends who haven’t seen the show.  Also, notice that basically everyone else is referred to by their first name.  Doctor Wells isn’t for extremely good reasons.  I won’t tell you them because as River Song would say, “Spoilers!” ;)

 

_“Ergo, we should put Hartley in jail now so we don’t have to deal with him later.”_

_“....You don’t become a superhero to hurt people; you become a superhero to help people_

Does this conversation remind y’all of Joe’s conversation with Eddie, or is it just me?  I actually reread it before I posted BaBW because I was under the impression that I included “you don’t become a cop to arrest people, you become a cop to assist people”, but nope, my memory once again proves shoddy.

 

_she formed an O with her fist, “one does not simply throw ‘bully’ around willy-nilly.  Assuming he grew up with us in the original timeline, my guess is that the reason he treated Hartley so badly is because somebody encouraged him; and based on what I endure after you two get off work, it probably wasn’t Cait.”_

Iris may not be a hardcore nerd like Cisco is, but everybody knows “one does not simply”.

Have I mentioned how much I love intuitive characters today???

I love how she endures her cousins after work.

 

_Solnishko was sitting criss-cross applesauce in the middle of the floor and locking gazes with Jerrie: a Eurasian lynx._

I picked a Eurasian lynx because Eurasian lynxes are adorable, not because I particularly connect them to Hartley.  Jerrie was going to be an actual cat way back before I got the idea for the Plush Menagerie.  She was going to be a loofah version of a witch’s familiar, and Solnishko was going to have a cheetah lookalike named Jessie.  Both cats were going to become telepathic when the particle accelerator exploded and when the Earth-2 folks came on board, Jesse was going to greet them, “Hi, Jessie-with-an-I, I’m Jesse-without-an-I, it’s nice to meet you!”

Cue Harry wandering in and raising an eyebrow at his daughter, “They can’t talk back, you know.”

“Fuck you, fake Wells!” Jessie would’ve growled, because in her mind, all of the Earth2 doppelgängers are phonies.

Jerrie, an aristocat, would tell her adopted kitten, “Watch your language, young one.”

 

_Cisco moved enough plushies to sit down next to Solnishko, who pillowed his head on his hermano’s shoulder.  Cisco flung an arm around him and squeezed Brüderchen’s hand four times, “....I think Pied Piper would love her.”_

This is why I waited for Cisco to squeeze Solnishko’s hand four times.  It’s not something you do casually, you have to mean it with all of your heart and soul.

 

_Mick got up to start dinner, Lisa got up to taste test dinner, and Len retreated to the library.  Plushies formed a second carpet until Solnishko speed-arranged them on the coffee table.  Solnishko gave Jerrie and #FAR Junior the best seat in the house—his lap—for a back-to-back viewing of Finding Nemo and Finding Dory._

If Len’s anything like me, he needs a break from all of these lovely weirdoes who have invaded the sanctity of his home.

Also, awwwwwwwwwwwwww

 

_He hugged Jerrie as if he had rigor mortis._

Awwwwwwwwwwwww

 

_Clyde looked at Len with alarm, “Wait, where are we sleeping!?”_

_“At your house!” Len’s tolerance of the twins decreased exponentially after dark.  They hit him with a double whammy of pouting, yet he stood firm. “You can come back after sunrise tomorrow, but you are not sleeping here.  The bed situation barely works as it is.  I love you; go away!”_

_“Lenny said he loves us, Mark!” Clyde grinned half-genuinely, half-teasingly._

_Mark got up off the couch and signed, “((Told you so.))”_

_“Go away!” Len repeated.  His fingers bore into his temples.  He nearly fainted when the twins actually departed, “And don’t slam the—” Whap! “Door....”_

Lol

Mark and Clyde would be intolerable in real life.

 

_“Apologies for bothering you, but a question has nagged me all night, and I need it answered,” hooded Hartley Rathaway stated. “Am I hallucinating!?  A few months ago, I started seeing tornados rise up and rain back into the ocean, then I saw one again yesterday afternoon!”_

Lol :D :D :D

 

_If you want to be called something other than Hartley, let me know right away.  My name doesn’t match what’s on my birth certificate either._

_I was rescued on the anniversary of #Rathagay, and I was barely able to handle freedom.  My family just told me about it yesterday.  I’m sorry this letter comes to you so late and if it brings up bad memories, but apparently nobody’s told you this, so I will._

_Your family is little and broken, but that’s okay because you didn’t break it; your parents did.  They don’t accept you exactly as you are, so they don’t deserve you anyway.  You can be part of my 'ohana if you want to be.  It’s loud, it’s large, and we’re a clan of lunatics, but if you accept us exactly as we are, we’ll accept you exactly as you are.  Here’s the main three you don’t know about._

_Lenny might pick on you because you don’t speak Russian, but don’t worry, I’ll teach you.  Lisa might pick on you because your clothes are kinda vanilla, but don’t worry, I’ll buy you fun clothes.  Mick might pick on you because you’re a vegetarian, but don’t worry, I’ll explain to him that you don’t eat meat because you think all lives matter._

_You may not think “all” includes you, but it does.  You are brave and brilliant, but even if you were neither of these things, you would still be important._

_I would never wish where I came from on anybody, but if you were there with me, you would’ve been smart enough to free us; and on the off-chance whatever plan you came up with failed, you would’ve kept trying until you found one that did._

This is another time I cried while writing this fic.  If you made it all the way through the first time around without at least sniffling, you have no soul.

 

_By the terror on Hartley’s face, he must’ve connected those dots as well.  He fled as soon as he heard Cisco's primal, drawn-out yawn.  Solnishko inserted himself between them immediately, his eyes glowed, and his voice became dubstep Vader as he addressed Cisco, “ **I don’t expect you to be best friends, I don’t even expect you to be friends, all I expect you to be is ‘ohana.** ”_

_Movie buff Cisco assumed he had this in the bag, “‘Ohana means family, and family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten.”_

_“ **That too, but it also means nobody hurts each other no matter how mad we are**_

Cisco, how you and everybody else are treating Hartley is not okay!  Caitlin wouldn’t put up with anything especially abusive from her hermano, but that doesn’t change the fact that what a person says carries weight.  Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will break my heart and soul.

As someone who’s their own worst bully, hearing nothing but insults and being on the receiving end of horrible pranks all day only confirms what Hartley already suspects about himself: he’s worthless, he’s alone, and nobody cares enough to change these things.  Thankfully, I’m not in Hartley’s shoes, but I can imagine how damaging such a fate would be.

 

_The girls lectured Cisco with their eyes until he stopped procrastinating to swallow his sip and surrendered, “It means ‘I love you unconditionally’.”_

_Hartley and Solnishko squeezed each other’s hand four times in sync._

Awwwwwwwwwwwww

 

_“I know Lenny said you could come back at sunrise, but can’t you two have waited unt—” Mick smoldered on sight of Hartley.  With his hand on the corner connecting the hall and the main area, he hollered back into the abyss, “Lenny!!!”_

Lol

 

_The twins belatedly burst forth to assess the situation, fetched Robbie, and locked themselves inside the workshop by the time Len blearily ambled in.  Everybody else winced when they heard a soup of shouts and curses.  They winced again when a most-definitely-not-Clyde voice took his turn._

The twins are not happy campers.

 

_“(We’re used to having everybody we love right next to us, and Solnishko’s not next to us most of the time anymore,)” Mark lifted his head and sniffled guiltily._

_Clyde buried his head into Mark’s shoulder and wailed, “And now that his boyfriend and his first family’s here, he’s gonna spend even less time with us now!!!”_

:(

I know they’re being puerile right now, but their feelings are valid considering how they grew up.

 

_“That’s right. No matter how long the night lasts, the sun returns to our side of the planet eventually.  Solnishko has plenty of light for everyone, and if anyone douses his light, you two have first dibs on murdering them after Mick,” Len exhaled his exhaustion, patted their shoulders, and sent them on their way so he could wrangle his husband.  It was too early in the morning to be dealing with this shit; Len hadn’t even drunk a cup of coffee yet, dammit!  Lisa handed him his Frozen mug, to which he yawned, “Thank god!”_

Go Lenny.

 

_The twins tramped over to the kitchen.  They glared at Hartley.  The latter eventually piped up, “This isn’t how my twin threesome fantasy begins, but by all means, please continue.”_

STAR Blazers!Hartley may only have his name in common with canon!Hartley, but I’d like to think this is something canon!Hartley would say.

 

_Solnishko got up and squeezed the Mardons’ hands four times, “This means I love you unconditionally.  Even if I make friends with everybody in the world, I’ll still be friends with you._

Awwwwwwwwwww

 

_The twins exited with Clyde bellowing, “Murrrderrrrrrrrr!!!”_

_Caitlin, Iris, Lisa, Cisco, Solnishko, and Hartley all watched the door to ensure no more chaos would appear._

Lol

 

_“They've been acting kinda funny ever since they moved out,”_

Only kinda funny? Sure thing, Solnishko.

 

_Hartley was fluent in six languages and none of them were German_

I had to look this up so many goddamn times cuz I kept forgetting, ugh!  I hate research!  The arrowverse wiki takes forever to load on my laptop.  It states something along the lines of “Hartley is fluent in six languages including: French, Spanish, Japanese, and Latin.”  English is obviously his first language, and making language #6 ASL was a no-brainer.  Pretty much every other fanfic writer does, too.

 

_Brüderchen ~ noun_

  1. _Bartholomew Henry Allen_
  2. _Barry_
  3. _The boy who vanished on the night of Nelson and Nona Neubert’s double homicide_
  4. _Solnishko Rory_
  5. _Piper’s Lilo_



Awwwwwww

 

_Len opened the door to the workshop and came upon Mick totally not venting at Robbie—see, she’s way over there!  Len cradled his mug, “We've known since the dawn of time, but I still need you to communicate coherently, so if you’re not finished growling at the dog, I will wait.”_

Lol :)

 

_“They’ll make it work,” Len sipped his bitterly silky brew before he set it on the workbench. “We’re talking about the same boy who wouldn’t show us anything he’d drawn in his Green Notebook for months because all anybody ever did in the original timeline was hurt Pied Piper; Solnishko refused to give anybody a chance to hurt him in this one.  If that’s how protective he is of drawings, how hard do you think he’ll fight for the real thing?  And if the glance I got of Rathaway’s face is any indication, he’ll fight just as hard for Solnishko....” Len may have come second to Batman in stoicism, yet Mick knew when his husband needed a hug, so Mick gave him one.  Len momentarily whispered into his husband's ear, “Rathaway’s face right now is the face I wore when I finally realized you would never hurt me like countless other people had in my life up to that point.”_

Awwwwwwwwwwww

 

_“I’m not religious, but you plead a good case for the existence of angels.  You spent fourteen years in hell yet have been kinder to me in” he glanced at his watch “one fucking hour than everybody else in my life has combined!_

Okay, I realize that half of this commentary consists of me going “awwwwwwww”, but awwwwwwwwww!

 

_And you are not Flash; you are… Blitz.  I can’t, won’t, and don’t hold Flash’s actions against you, and if there were any way to ask him, Pied Piper wouldn’t either, and neither should you_

Here we go again: awwwwwwwwwwwww

 

_He used to have red lightning, but then he lost it.”_

_“How exactly did he lose his lightning???” Hartley blinked with mouth opened halfway._

_“I dunno,” Solnishko casually shrugged. “It just stopped showing up one day.  It never really listened to him even when it was around, yet he flipped out when it disappeared.”_

This ties into the better idea I have for the Speed Force.

 

_“I have come to believe many impossible things today, but I refuse to believe you could ever become Flash,” Hartley assured him after correctly inferring he’d just shown off Flash’s suit. “I understand why it’s important to you to separate yourself from him.  Mister Ramon and I will design a new one for you… together… with Doctor Snow reminding us we’re ‘ohana every step of the way.”_

Awwwwwwwww

If anyone's confused as to why Hartley refers to Caitlin as Doctor Snow and Cisco as Mister Ramon, it's because everybody else at STAR Labs does too.  Caitlin's full name is Caitlin Snow Allen, and Cisco's full name is Francisco Ramon Allen.  Their parents don't work at STAR Labs, but it's just easier to refer to the kids by their middle names since there are two Doctor Allens and three other Allens folks could potentially be discussing.

 

_I had to wait three hours for Doctor Wells to waddle his ass out of a board meeting and another half hour for him to locate it so I could eat my favorite lunch_

Poor Hartley :(

 

_Someone should give him a Robbie because chess is not healthy ventilation for whatever goes on inside his hurricane of a head.  I played that game with him for my job, and I never want to do it again.  He plays chess like he’s two people fighting over a dagger with a victim bound before them: one wants to save the victim while the other will stab whoever stands in his way.”_

This isn’t foreshadowing ANYTHING AT ALL, why do you ask??? :D

 

_Solnishko took a deep breath.  Hartley helped him up.  The duo returned to the kitchen where Iris proudly wriggled her upturned face and slammed her Clarkian Cards onto the table, “Yahtzee!”_

_“Godammit, Iris, that’s your third Yahtzee in a row!” Lisa’s useless reverses fluttered when she furiously flung them into the air._

_Solnishko zoomed over and double-checked Iris’s claim—he and twins horrendously discovered last night that Joe had raised a dirty rotten cheater!_

Lol

 

_Mick grumbled as he emerged with Len following behind him.  Hartley froze, expecting trouble.  Undeterred, Mick advanced towards him, “Nobody’s teachin' ‘im how to play Clarkian Cards until Lenny and I teach ‘im how to lockpick!”_

Aw, Mick, you’re such a papa wolf <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

 

_Hartley—who now happily owned a Eurasian lynx—shifted so the twins could sandwich Solnishko._

Awwwwwww

 

_This garnered the twins’ approval._

_Clyde poked Hartley from across Mark and Solnishko, “It doesn’t take much to make our little buddy so damn freakin’ happy; as long as you keep him happy, we’ll loan him out to you.”_

_Mark fisted Hartley’s hoodie and snarled a whisper, “But if you ever make him unhappy, Mick won’t get to claim his dibs if we’re closer!”_

_The twins folded their arms and simmered like bodyguards.  Their simmer boiled over after Hartley smirked, “On a scale of ‘hell no’ to ‘hell yes’, how do you two feel about deaf power-bottoming?”_

And just when you think they’re all finally getting along, I leave you wondering if Hartley is still alive :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow! You've survived another HFE commentary! You go, reader!


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